Proteins Involved in Synaptic Vesicle Docking and Fusion
- M.E. Burns1,
- S.A. Beushausen2,
- G.J. Chin2,
- D. Tang2,
- W.M. DeBello1,
- T. Dresbach3,
- V. O'Connor3,
- F.E. Schweizer1,
- S.S.-H. Wang1,
- S.W. Whiteheart4,
- L.A. Hawkey1,
- H. Betz3, and
- S.W. Augustine1
- 1Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710; 2National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892; 3Department of Neurochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany; 4Department of Biochemistry, University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington, Kentucky 40536
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
One of the most highly evolved forms of membrane trafficking takes place in the presynaptic terminals of neurons. Within these structures, the fusion of synaptic vesicles with the presynaptic plasma membrane leads to the exocytotic release of neurotransmitters. A striking feature of this form of exocytosis is its tight regulation. The arrival of an electrical signal, the action potential, in the presynaptic terminal accelerates the rate of exocytosis more than 100,000-fold (Katz 1969). This regulation is conferred by the voltage-dependent entry, and subsequent intracellular accumulation, of calcium ions (Augustine et al. 1987). Another remarkable feature of the exocytotic secretion of neurotransmitters is its speed. Within a fraction of a millisecond after calcium has entered the presynaptic terminal, transmitter is released from the terminal and diffuses across the synaptic cleft (Llinás et al. 1981; Augustine et al. 1985).
The exocytotic secretion of neurotransmitters is just one of a cycle of reactions...
