Abstract
Intracellular transport delivers cellular cargoes to and from their sites of action. Neurons are characterized by a polar and excitable nature and require the precise delivery of mRNAs, proteins and organelles to specific subcellular domains.
Multiple motor protein complexes have been identified that actively transport synaptic cargoes along microtubules and actin filaments in both anterograde and retrograde directions. Different synaptic proteins couple via adaptor molecules to molecular motors and individual cargo adaptors also mediate scaffolding functions at postsynaptic membrane specializations, or have been found to participate in the navigation of cargoes to either axons or dendrites.
Increasing evidence suggests a functional crosstalk between synaptic activation and the intracellular transport machinery.
Whether microtubule-based transport contributes to long-term strengthening or weakening of synapses is currently under investigation. A variety of posttranslational modifications of tubulin positively or negatively influence cargo traffic and are suggested to act as molecular traffic signs in transport regulation.
About the author
Studied biology at the Darmstadt Technical University with an external degree thesis at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main. Following a 4-year doctorate at University College London/UK, during which he generated a“knockin” mouse model for the investigation of NMDA receptors, he joined Prof. Betz at the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main to investigate postsynaptic proteins of inhibitory synapses. This work gained the Jansen-Cilag Sponsorship Award from the German Neuroscience Society in 2001. In 2002 he moved to the Hamburg Center for Molecular Neurobiology (ZMNH) as an independent senior research scientist. During this time he investigated primarily molecular processes of neurotransmitter receptor turnover and transport, receiving the Chica and Heinz Schaller Research Award in 2006. Matthias Kneussel qualified as a university lecturer in the period 2004-2005 in the subjects biochemistry and genetics and was appointed director of the Center for Molecular Neurogenetics at the ZMNH in 2010. Since then, his research group has combined working methods using mouse genetics with neuronal time-resolved videomicroscopy and behavioural research to better understand synaptic transport processes in relation to neuronal plasticity, learning and memory.
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
