Toward Axonal System Biology: Genome Wide Views of Local mRNA Translation

Neurons present a highly polarized morphology, often displaying a significantly imbalanced distribution of the cytoplasm between the somatic and axonal domains. This imbalance requires cell-specific mechanisms for the maintenance of the axoplasmic mass during development, neuronal homeostasis, and recovery after injury. Although it has been clearly demonstrated that axoplasmic transport contributes a large amount of proteins to the axons, local protein synthesis has been fully accepted as an important complementary source of proteins, which aids in the maintenance of the axoplasmic mass in both normal and regenerating conditions. This review analyzes and highlights the most important advances in the knowledge of the axonal transcriptome, translatome, and proteome at a genome-wide scale. It is discussed how this knowledge has provided researchers with new insights regarding the involvement of local protein synthesis in many key neuronal functions. In addition, challenges, open questions, and methods currently available to study axonal mRNA localization and protein synthesis are addressed.