Cooperative function of synaptophysin and synapsin in the generation of synaptic vesicle-like clusters in non-neuronal cells

Daehun Park, Yumei Wu, Sang-Eun Lee, Goeun Kim, Seonyoung Jeong, Dragomir Milovanovic, Pietro De Camilli () and Sunghoe Chang ()
Additional contact information
Daehun Park: Yale University School of Medicine
Yumei Wu: Yale University School of Medicine
Sang-Eun Lee: Seoul National University College of Medicine
Goeun Kim: Seoul National University College of Medicine
Seonyoung Jeong: Seoul National University College of Medicine
Dragomir Milovanovic: Yale University School of Medicine
Pietro De Camilli: Yale University School of Medicine
Sunghoe Chang: Seoul National University College of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Clusters of tightly packed synaptic vesicles (SVs) are a defining feature of nerve terminals. While SVs are mobile within the clusters, the clusters have no boundaries consistent with a liquid phase. We previously found that purified synapsin, a peripheral SV protein, can assemble into liquid condensates and trap liposomes into them. How this finding relates to the physiological formation of SV clusters in living cells remains unclear. Here, we report that synapsin alone, when expressed in fibroblasts, has a diffuse cytosolic distribution. However, when expressed together with synaptophysin, an integral SV membrane protein previously shown to be localized on small synaptic-like microvesicles when expressed in non-neuronal cells, is sufficient to organize such vesicles in clusters highly reminiscent of SV clusters and with liquid-like properties. This minimal reconstitution system can be a powerful model to gain mechanistic insight into the assembly of structures which are of fundamental importance in synaptic transmission.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20462-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20462-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20462-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().