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Postsynaptic calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II is required to limit elaboration of presynaptic and

D J Zou1, H T Cline

  • 1Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|October 12, 1999
PubMed

Insights

Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) activity in postsynaptic cells limits neuronal process growth. Inhibiting CaMKII in Xenopus tadpoles allowed both dendritic and axonal arbors to grow excessively, revealing its crucial role in regulating neuronal structure.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Biology
  • Cell Signaling

Background:

  • Neuronal arbors achieve a specific size and then stabilize.
  • Activity-dependent signals are hypothesized to limit neuronal process growth.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if endogenous calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) activity in postsynaptic optic tectal cells restricts neuronal process elaboration in the Xenopus tadpole retinotectal projection.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized vaccinia virus to express CaMKII-specific inhibitory peptides in optic tectal cells.
  • Employed in vivo time-lapse imaging to observe the effects of CaMKII inhibition on neuronal arbor growth.

Main Results:

  • Inhibition of CaMKII in postsynaptic cells prevented the normal growth restriction of dendritic arbors.
  • Blocking postsynaptic CaMKII activity led to increased growth of presynaptic retinotectal axon arbors.

Conclusions:

  • Endogenous postsynaptic CaMKII activity is essential for limiting the growth of both presynaptic and postsynaptic neuronal arbor structures in vivo.
  • CaMKII plays a critical role in the activity-dependent regulation of neuronal morphology during development.

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