Regulation of the morphology of neuronal dendritic spines involved in synaptic function

我们分析了Rho家族蛋白激活后培养神经元中成纤维细胞和突触后棘细胞的形态变化。Rho家族蛋白的激活是通过依赖于光激活的Rho家族GEF移位到质膜上而人工触发的。在成纤维细胞中，racgef诱导片状脂膜的形成，而Rhogef诱导应力纤维的形成。在神经元中，racgef增加了棘突的数量，而Rhogef减少了棘突的大小。成纤维细胞和突触棘细胞的变化与以前的报道一致。这些结果表明，可以通过人工激活Rho家族蛋白来操纵突触棘突。

We analyzed changes in the morphology of cultured fibroblasts and postsynaptic spines in cultured neurons induced by activation of Rho family proteins. The activation of Rho family proteins was artificially triggered by photoactivation-dependent translocation of Rho family GEFs to the plasma membrane. In fibroblasts, RacGEF induced the formation of lamellipodia, and RhoGEF induced the formation of stress fibers. In neurons, RacGEF increased the number of spines, and RhoGEF reduced the size of spines. The changes in fibroblasts and synaptic spines were consistent with previous reports. These results show that synaptic spines can be manipulated by artificial activation of Rho family proteins.