Formation and Stability of Synaptic Receptor Domains
Abstract
Neurotransmitter receptor molecules, concentrated in postsynaptic domains along with scaffold and a number of other molecules, are key regulators of signal transmission across synapses. Combining experiment and theory, we develop a quantitative description of synaptic receptor domains in terms of a reaction-diffusion model. We show that interactions between only receptors and scaffolds, together with the rapid diffusion of receptors on the cell membrane, are sufficient for the formation and stable characteristic size of synaptic receptor domains. Our work reconciles long-term stability of synaptic receptor domains with rapid turnover and diffusion of individual receptors, and suggests novel mechanisms for a form of short-term, postsynaptic plasticity.
Additional Information
© 2011 American Physical Society. Received 17 December 2010; published 8 June 2011. R. A. d. S. is grateful to Philippe Ascher and Jean-Pierre Changeux for illuminating discussions. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (C. A. H.), the Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Foundation and a FEBS grant (M. C.), the NSF through Grant No. DMR-08-03315 and the Ecole Normale Supéieure (M. K.), the Inserm UR 789 (A. T.), and the CNRS through UMR 8550 (R. A. d. S.).Attached Files
Published - Haselwandter2011p14355Phys_Rev_Lett.pdf
Supplemental Material - README.TXT
Supplemental Material - SUPP.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 24302
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110705-142915363
- Austrian Science Fund
- Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Foundation
- FEBS grant
- DMR-08-03315
- NSF
- Ecole Normale Supéieure
- Inserm UR 789
- CNRS through UMR 8550
- Created
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2011-07-06Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field