Activity-dependent regulation of dendritic growth and maintenance by glycogen synthase kinase 3β

Yanfang Rui, Kenneth R. Myers, Kuai Yu, Ariel Wise, Angel L. De Blas, H. Criss Hartzell and James Q. Zheng ()
Additional contact information
Yanfang Rui: Emory University School of Medicine
Kenneth R. Myers: Emory University School of Medicine
Kuai Yu: Emory University School of Medicine
Ariel Wise: Emory University School of Medicine
Angel L. De Blas: University of Connecticut
H. Criss Hartzell: Emory University School of Medicine
James Q. Zheng: Emory University School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Activity-dependent dendritic development represents a crucial step in brain development, but its underlying mechanisms remain to be fully elucidated. Here we report that glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK3β) regulates dendritic development in an activity-dependent manner. We find that GSK3β in somatodendritic compartments of hippocampal neurons becomes highly phosphorylated at serine-9 upon synaptogenesis. This phosphorylation-dependent GSK3β inhibition is mediated by neurotrophin signalling and is required for dendritic growth and arbourization. Elevation of GSK3β activity leads to marked shrinkage of dendrites, whereas its inhibition enhances dendritic growth. We further show that these effects are mediated by GSK3β regulation of surface GABAA receptor levels via the scaffold protein gephyrin. GSK3β activation leads to gephyrin phosphorylation to reduce surface GABAA receptor clusters, resulting in neuronal hyperexcitability that causes dendrite shrinkage. These findings thus identify GSK3β as a key player in activity-dependent regulation of dendritic development by targeting the excitatory–inhibitory balance of the neuron.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3628 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:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3628

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

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3628

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 ().