Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 8 (2015): 455, doi:10.3389/fncel.2014.00455.
Description:
Here we summarize the evidence from two “giant” presynaptic terminals—the squid giant synapse and the mammalian calyx of Held—supporting the involvement of nanodomain calcium signals in triggering of neurotransmitter release. At the squid synapse, there are three main lines of experimental evidence for nanodomain signaling. First, changing the size of the unitary calcium channel current by altering external calcium concentration causes a non-linear change in transmitter release, while changing the number of open channels by broadening the presynaptic action potential causes a linear change in release. Second, low-affinity calcium indicators, calcium chelators, and uncaging of calcium all suggest that presynaptic calcium concentrations are as high as hundreds of micromolar, which is more compatible with a nanodomain type of calcium signal. Finally, neurotransmitter release is much less affected by the slow calcium chelator, ethylene glycol tetraacetic acid (EGTA), in comparison to the rapid chelator 1,2-bis(o-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N’,N’-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA). Similarly, as the calyx of Held synapse matures, EGTA becomes less effective in attenuating transmitter release while the number of calcium channels required to trigger a single fusion event declines. This suggests a developmental transformation of microdomain to nanodomain coupling between calcium channels and transmitter release. Calcium imaging and uncaging experiments, in combination with simulations of calcium diffusion, indicate the peak calcium concentration seen by presynaptic calcium sensors reaches at least tens of micromolar at the calyx of Held. Taken together, data from these provide a compelling argument that nanodomain calcium signaling gates very rapid transmitter release.
Description:
This work was supported by a CRP grant from the National Research Foundation of Singapore and by the World Class Institute (WCI) Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea (MEST) (NRF Grant Number: WCI 2009-003) (to George J. Augustine), and by Operating Grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-77610, MOP-81159, MOP-14692, VIH-105441) and Canada Research Chair (to Lu-Yang Wang).
Keywords:
Neurotransmitter release
;
Calcium signaling
;
Calcium channels
;
Presynaptic terminals
;
Synaptic vesicle trafficking
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
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