Coordination between sequential steps in synaptic vesicle endocytosis, including clathrin coat formation, fission, and uncoating, appears to involve proteinprotein interactions. Here, we show that compounds that disrupt interactions of the SH3 domain of endophilin with dynamin and synaptojanin impair synaptic vesicle endocytosis in a living synapse. Two distinct endocytic intermediates accumulated. Free clathrin-coated vesicles were induced by a peptide-blocking endophilin's SH3 domain and by antibodies to the proline-rich domain (PRD) of synaptojanin. Invaginated clathrin-coated pits were induced by the same peptide and by the SH3 domain of endophilin. We suggest that the SH3 domain of endophilin participates in both fission and uncoating and that it may be a key component of a molecular switch that couples the fission reaction to uncoating.

We used electron tomography to map the three-dimensional architecture of the ribbon-class afferent synapses in frog saccular hair cells. The synaptic body (SB) at each synapse was nearly spherical (468 +/- 65 nm diameter; mean +/- SD) and was covered by a monolayer of synaptic vesicles (34.3 nm diameter; 8.8% coefficient of variation), many of them tethered to it by approximately 20-nm-long filaments, at an average density of 55% of close-packed (376 +/- 133 vesicles per SB). These vesicles could support approximately 900 msec of exocytosis at the reported maximal rate, which the cells can sustain for at least 2 sec, suggesting that replenishment of vesicles on the SB is not rate limiting. Consistent with this interpretation, prolonged K+ depolarization did not deplete vesicles on the SB. The monolayer of SB-associated vesicles remained after cell lysis in the presence of 4 mM Ca2+, indicating that the association is tight and Ca2+-resistant. The space between the SB and the plasma membrane contained numerous vesicles, many of which ( approximately 32 per synapse) were in contact with the plasma membrane. This number of docked vesicles could support maximal exocytosis for at most approximately 70 msec. Additional docked vesicles were seen within a few hundred nanometers of the synapse and occasionally at greater distances. The presence of omega profiles on the plasma membrane around active zones, in the same locations as coated pits and coated vesicles labeled with an extracellular marker, suggests that local membrane recycling may contribute to the three- to 14-fold greater abundance of vesicles in the cytoplasm (not associated with the SB) near synapses than in nonsynaptic regions.

We used electron tomography of frog saccular hair cells to reconstruct presynaptic ultrastructure at synapses specialized for sustained transmitter release. Synaptic vesicles at inhibited synapses were abundant in the cytoplasm and covered the synaptic body at high density. Continuous maximal stimulation depleted 73% of the vesicles within 800 nm of the synapse, with a concomitant increase in surface area of intracellular cisterns and plasmalemmal infoldings. Docked vesicles were depleted 60%-80% regardless of their distance from the active zone. Vesicles on the synaptic body were depleted primarily in the hemisphere facing the plasmalemma, creating a gradient of vesicles on its surface. We conclude that formation of new synaptic vesicles from cisterns is rate limiting in the vesicle cycle.

Investigation of the Vpu protein of HIV-1 recently uncovered a novel aspect of the mammalian innate response to enveloped viruses: retention of progeny virions on the surface of infected cells by the interferon-induced, transmembrane and GPI-anchored protein BST-2 (CD317; tetherin). BST-2 inhibits diverse families of enveloped viruses, but how it restricts viral release is unclear. Here, immuno-electron microscopic data indicate that BST-2 is positioned to directly retain nascent HIV virions on the plasma membrane of infected cells and is incorporated into virions. Virion-incorporation was confirmed by capture of infectivity using antibody to the ectodomain of BST-2. Consistent with a direct tethering mechanism, we confirmed that proteolysis releases restricted virions and further show that this removed the ectodomain of BST-2 from the cell surface. Unexpectedly, enzymatic cleavage of GPI anchors did not release restricted virions, weighing against models in which individual BST-2 molecules span the virion and host cell membranes. Although the exact molecular topology of restriction remains unsolved, we suggest that the incorporation of BST-2 into viral envelopes underlies its broad restrictive activity, whereas its relative exclusion from virions and sites of viral assembly by proteins such as HIV-1 Vpu may provide viral antagonism of restriction.

Neurofilaments are essential for acquisition of normal axonal calibers. Several lines of evidence have suggested that neurofilament-dependent structuring of axoplasm arises through an “outside-in” signaling cascade originating from myelinating cells. Implicated as targets in this cascade are the highly phosphorylated KSP domains of neurofilament subunits NF-H and NF-M. These are nearly stoichiometrically phosphorylated in myelinated internodes where radial axonal growth takes place, but not in the smaller, unmyelinated nodes. Gene replacement has now been used to produce mice expressing normal levels of the three neurofilament subunits, but which are deleted in the known phosphorylation sites within either NF-M or within both NF-M and NF-H. This has revealed that the tail domain of NF-M, with seven KSP motifs, is an essential target for the myelination-dependent outside-in signaling cascade that determines axonal caliber and conduction velocity of motor axons.