Response: Commentary: Analysis of SUMO1-conjugation at synapses

Neurons communicate with one another by passing on their electrical signals to other neurons. A synapse is the location where two neurons meet to exchange signals. At the synapse, the neuron that sends the signal is called the presynaptic cell, while the neuron that receives the message is called the postsynaptic cell. Note that most neurons can be both presynaptic and postsynaptic, as they both transmit and receive information.

Simple proteins and protein complexes contain only amino acids. In contrast, many other proteins, called conjugated proteins, covalently bond with non-protein moieties.
Nucleoproteins are protein complexes that contain nucleic acids, categorized as deoxyribonucleoproteins (DNPs) or ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) respectively. The nucleosome is a typical example of a DNP where nuclear DNA is associated with histone proteins. The major antigen for the Covid-19 virus SARS-CoV is an RNP that is critical...

Conjugation is a form of horizontal gene transfer that primarily occurs in bacteria and some archaea, promoting genetic diversity and adaptation. Bacteria can acquire resistance genes through conjugative plasmids, allowing them to survive antibiotic treatments that would otherwise be lethal. This process involves direct contact between cells through specialized structures such as the sex pilus and is mediated by conjugative plasmids, including the F (fertility) factor.Conjugation requires...

Electrical synapses found in all nervous systems play important and unique roles. In these synapses, the presynaptic and postsynaptic membranes are very close together (3.5 nm) and are actually physically connected by channel proteins forming gap junctions.
Gap junctions allow the current to pass directly from one cell to the next. In contrast, in the chemical synapse, the neurotransmitters carry the information through the synaptic cleft from one neuron to the next. They consist of two...

Chemical synapses are specialized sites between two neurons or between a neuron and a non-neuronal cell like a muscle, glandular or sensory cell.
Because chemical synapses depend on the release of neurotransmitter molecules from synaptic vesicles to pass on their signal, there is an approximately one millisecond delay between when the axon potential reaches the presynaptic terminal and when the neurotransmitter leads to opening of postsynaptic ion channels. Additionally, this signaling is...