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S yn CAM 1 improves survival of adult‐born neurons by accelerating synapse maturation
Author(s) -
Doengi Michael,
Krupp Alexander J.,
Körber Nils,
Stein Valentin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
hippocampus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.767
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1098-1063
pISSN - 1050-9631
DOI - 10.1002/hipo.22524
Subject(s) - synapse , neuroscience , chemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , biology
The survival of adult‐born dentate gyrus granule cells critically depends on their synaptic integration into the existing neuronal network. Excitatory inputs are thought to increase the survival rate of adult born neurons. Therefore, whether enhancing the stability of newly formed excitatory synapses by overexpressing the synaptic cell adhesion molecule SynCAM 1 improves the survival of adult‐born neurons was tested. Here it is shown that overexpression of SynCAM 1 improves survival of adult‐born neurons, but has no effect on the proliferation rate of precursor cells. As expected, overexpression of SynCAM 1 increased the synapse density in adult‐born granule neurons. While adult‐born granule neurons have very few functional synapses 15 days after birth, it was found that at this age adult‐born neurons in SynCAM 1 overexpressing mice exhibited around three times more excitatory synapses, which were stronger than synapses of adult‐born neurons of control littermates. In summary, the data indicated that additional SynCAM 1 accelerated synapse maturation, which improved the stability of newly formed synapses and in turn increased the likelihood of survival of adult‐born neurons. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.