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Updated: Jul 6, 2026
Analysis of Dendritic Spine Morphology in Cultured CNS Neurons
Published on: July 13, 2011
WITHDRAWN: Dendritic Spine and Synapse Morphological Alterations Induced by a Neural Cell Adhesion Molecule (NCAM)
Michael Stewart1, Victor Popov, Nikolai Medvedev
1Faculty of Sciences, Department of Life Sciences, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK, m.g.stewart@open.ac.uk.
Abstract:
The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) is a glycoprotein expressed on the surface of neurons and glial cells. It plays a key role in morphogenesis of the nervous system, regeneration of damaged neural tissue and synaptic plasticity. The extracellular domain of NCAM engages in homophilic interactions (NCAM binding to NCAM) and in heterophilic interactions between NCAM and other proteins such as the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptor. It promotes synaptogenesis and activity-dependent remodelling of synapses but less is know of its influence on synaptic and dendritic morphology. Recently, quantitative electron microscopy and 3-dimensional reconstruction (3-D) of ultrathin serial sections has been used to examine the morphology of synapses and dendritic spines in the hippocampus of rats treated with a neural cell adhesion molecule-derived fibroblast growth factor receptor agonist, FGL-peptide (an NCAM mimetic). These data show clearly that the FGL peptide has marked influences on both spine and synaptic form.
