Actin cytoskeleton in dendritic spine development and plasticity

Abstract

Synapses are the basic unit of neuronal communication and their disruption is associated with many neurological disorders. Significant progress has been made towards understanding the molecular and genetic regulation of synapse formation, modulation, and dysfunction, but the underlying cellular mechanisms remain incomplete. The actin cytoskeleton not only provides the structural foundation for synapses, but also regulates a diverse array of cellular activities underlying synaptic function. Here we will discuss the regulation of the actin cytoskeleton in dendritic spines, the postsynaptic compartment of excitatory synapses. We will focus on a select number of actin regulatory processes, highlighting recent advances, the complexity of crosstalk between different pathways, and the challenges of understanding their precise impact on the structure and function of synapses.

Actin regulation by tropomodulin and tropomyosin in neuronal morphogenesis and function

“…In addition to its roles in neurite development, actin has extensive functions in the formation and behavior of both the pre- and post-synapse (for reviews see (Lei et al, 2016; Rust and Maritzen, 2015)). Actin provides structures for the localization and transport of synaptic vesicles to and from the readily releasable pool of vesicles in axon termini.…”

Biophysical Properties and Motility of Human Mature Dendritic Cells Deteriorated by Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor through Cytoskeleton Remodeling

“…The cytoskeleton is the basis of the structure and function of cells, and continuously regulates their viscoelasticity, deformability, motility, and signaling, especially F-actin organization [28,48,49,50,51]. Rhodamine phalloidin can specifically bind to F-actin in cells, but does not combine with G-actin, which can be used for analyzing the structure of F-actin cytoskeleton by determination of the rhodamine fluorescence using confocal microscope.…”

Peptide regulation of cofilin activity in the CNS: A novel therapeutic approach for treatment of multiple neurological disorders

“…Because cofilin is about 12 fold more abundant in neurons than ADF (Garvalov et al, 2007), we will henceforth exclusively refer to cofilin in this review. Dendritic spines undergo dynamic changes during learning and memory (Kennedy, 2016), and cofilin plays a major role in dendritic spine shape and volume (Rust, 2015; Bamburg and Bernstein, 2016; Lei et al, 2016). In vivo cofilin collaborates with many other actin binding proteins to dynamically remodel the actin cytoskeleton into actin meshworks, branched or linear filament arrays, or short F-actin networks, which through assembly dynamics and treadmilling alters membrane structure and organization (Figure 1).…”

“…In addition to changes in dendritic spine shape and volume during LTP and LTD (structural plasticity), changes in ion channel surface expression and activity (functional plasticity) mediate synaptic transmission efficiency. Both processes rely on regulation of the actin cytoskeleton and myosin motors (Kneussel & Wagner, 2013; Spence & Soderling, 2015; Lei et al, 2016; Chazeau & Giannone, 2016). Cofilin works in concert with many other proteins to regulate actin filament dynamics, most notably as a factor to promote actin severing and depolymerization, allowing spine shrinkage for LTD, although cofilin activity may be transiently required for actin polymerization-dependent processes such as LTP (Gu et al, 2010).…”