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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Three-dimensional Quantification of Dendritic Spines from Pyramidal Neurons Derived from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Published on: October 10, 2015
Sema4D-plexin-B1 implicated in regulation of dendritic spine density through RhoA/ROCK pathway
Xianzong Lin1, Mariko Ogiya, Mizue Takahara
1Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Yamadaoka 2-2, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
Abstract:
Plexin-B1, Sema4D receptor, mediates retraction and extension signals in axon guidance by associating with PDZ-containing Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factors (PDZ-RhoGEFs) which can activate a small Rho GTPase RhoA. RhoA is implicated in spine formation by rearranging actin cytoskeleton. Exogenous application of Sema4D to cultured neurons caused activation of RhoA, increase of spine density and changes in spine shape. Sema4D-induced changes in spine density were blocked by either Rho-kinase (a downstream of RhoA, ROCK) inhibitor Y-27632 or by overexpression of plexin-B1 mutant lacking the C-terminus which no longer associates with PDZ-RhoGEFs. This study suggests that Sema4D-plexin-B1 play a crucial role in spine formation by regulating RhoA/ROCK pathway.
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