Principles of artificial synaptogenesis
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The process by which synapses in the vertebrate brain are formed has eluded neuroscience for decades. Despite tremendous advances in understanding how synapses facilitate signaling, the cellular processes that direct synaptogenesis are still a mystery. To understand the mechanistic basis of synaptogenesis I have focused attention on a family of molecules known as neuroligins. Neuroligins have a paradoxical relationship to synapse formation. Although genetic deletion of all neuroligin genes has no effect on synapse density, overexpression of neuroligin molecules by neurons in culture results in a dramatic increase in synaptic contacts made onto the overexpressing neuron. My approach has been to leverage neuroligin overexpression and study this artificial form of in vitro synaptogenesis under the assumption that the principles of artificial synaptogenesis are likely similar to the principles of synaptogenesis in vivo. Collectively, this work shows that artificial synaptogenesis induced by neuroligin overexpression is dependent primarily on extracellular interaction with neurexin and suggests that the synaptogenic effect may not be due to any specific signaling pathway, but instead may be attributable to high-affinity adhesion in general.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Hale, William Dylan |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Südhof, Thomas C |
| Thesis advisor | Südhof, Thomas C |
| Thesis advisor | Brünger, Axel T |
| Thesis advisor | Shen, Kang, 1972- |
| Degree committee member | Brünger, Axel T |
| Degree committee member | Chen, Lu, (Professor of neurosurgery) |
| Degree committee member | Shen, Kang, 1972- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | William Dylan Hale. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by William Dylan Hale
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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