Ultrastructural correlates of experimentally altered transmitter release efficacy in frog motor nerve terminals

After experimentally inducing long term changes in transmitter release, a series of frog neuromuscular junctions were studied with intracellular recording and then semi-serially sectioned and examined in the electron microscope. Transmitter release per unit length of motor nerve terminal was well correlated with several measures of the length of individual presynaptic active zones and with the number of mitochondria per terminal. Total release from each terminal correlated with estimates of the total amount of active zone. This study of neuromuscular junctions in sartorius muscles of the frog Rana pipiens was undertaken to search for ultrastructural correlates of the increase in transmitter release efficacy that follows denervation of the contralateral sartorius. This treatment typically results in greatly enhanced release at some synapses while others appear unaffected. In the present study, nine identified junctions with known physiological properties were sectioned every 6 micron throughout much of their length to yield 40-105 cross-sectional profiles per junction. Overall, these 9 synapses showed a 33-fold range in quantal transmitter release and an 18-fold range in release per unit nerve terminal. Release correlated with estimates of active zone size. No correlations were found between release and the density of synaptic vesicles adjacent to active zones. Our results suggest that active zones in motor nerve terminals are plastic structures, and that changes in active zone size may be the structural basis of long term changes in transmitter release and synaptic efficacy.