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Activity-dependent extracellular proteolytic cascade cleaves the ECM component brevican to promote structural
Jeet Bahadur Singh1,2,3, Bartomeu Perelló-Amorós4, Jenny Schneeberg5
1Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN), 39118, Magdeburg, Germany.
Neuronal activity triggers extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation in the brain, a process vital for structural synaptic plasticity and the formation of new dendritic connections.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Molecular Biology
- Cell Biology
Background:
- The brain's extracellular matrix (ECM) stabilizes neural circuits.
- Mechanisms of activity-induced synaptic plasticity in the adult brain's dense ECM remain unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neuronal activity-dependent ECM cleavage.
- To determine the role of brevican cleavage in synaptic plasticity in the rat hippocampus.
Main Methods:
- Ex vivo rat hippocampus preparation.
- Chemical long-term potentiation (cLTP) induction.
- Analysis of brevican cleavage and dendritic protrusion formation.
Main Results:
- cLTP rapidly cleaves brevican via a cascade involving proprotein convertases and ADAMTS-4/5.
- This cleavage requires NMDA receptor activation and astrocyte involvement.
- Inhibition of brevican cleavage blocks new dendritic protrusions but not LTP induction.
Conclusions:
- Neuronal activity induces ECM remodeling through proteolytic cleavage.
- ECM degradation is essential for structural synaptic plasticity.
- This reveals a novel mechanism for adult brain plasticity.
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