Fly photoreceptor synapses: their development, evolution, and plasticity

Recent studies are reviewed on the synapses of photoreceptor terminals in the first optic neuropile of the flies, Musca and Drosophila. Afferent synaptic contacts are of uniform dimensions; they have a postsynaptic tetrad with a membrane organization of P-face particles, resembling other inhibitory synapses. A distributed population of such contact sites forms progressively during synaptogenesis by the selective, sequential accretion of identified postsynaptic elements at the receptor terminal. The comparative anatomy of this synapse indicates that elements have also been added during its phylogeny from an ancestral dyad. All cells are homologs of those in other species of Diptera. The number of synaptic sites is regulated by both pre- and postsynaptic cells, in proportion to their cell surfaces; an independent size increase in the receptor terminals (procured in the Drosophila mutant gigas) produces an increase in their synaptic population. The number of sites declines with age, however, accompanied by an increase in size of those synaptic sites remaining; this occurs for both afferent and feedback photoreceptor synapses. Lastly, the number of sites changes with visual experience; the frequency of feedback synapses is larger following dark rearing during early adult life than following visual experience.