PBIO SEMINAR SERIES

Early determinants of whether and where synapses will form between cortical neurons

Wednesday - April 19, 2006
05-06 SEMINAR SERIES

Kimberley McAllister
Assistant Professor UC Davis
Speaker's website

Host: Andrés Barría

Excitatory synapse formation in the central nervous system requires coordinated assembly of large numbers of protein complexes and specialized membrane domains that are required for synaptic transmission and plasticity. Recent work has identified some of the early cellular events in synapse formation as well as the molecular signals that initiate this process. Despite these advances, a number of fundamental issues remain unresolved, such as what determines whether and where synapses will form between cortical neurons. Current models for CNS synapse formation imply that synapses can form anywhere along an axon where synaptogenic molecules are present. In my seminar, I will present data that are inconsistent with this current model. Our results suggest that the initial complement of synapses forms only at predefined sites along axons and that MHC class I molecules are a new class of molecules that potently limit the ability of a neuron to form synapses.