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Temporal characteristics of vesicular fusion in astrocytes: examination of synaptobrevin 2‐laden vesicles at single vesicle resolution
Author(s) -
Malarkey Erik B.,
Parpura Vladimir
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.210435
Subject(s) - exocytosis , vesicle fusion , synaptobrevin , vesicle , synaptotagmin 1 , microbiology and biotechnology , synaptic vesicle , kiss and run fusion , lipid bilayer fusion , fusion , biology , snap25 , biophysics , chemistry , biochemistry , membrane , linguistics , philosophy
Non‐technical summary Astrocytes have been shown to release transmitters by vesicle fusion, in a manner similar to that of neuronal exocytosis. The details of this process in astrocytes are not well understood, so we used a fluorescently labelled vesicle protein, synapto‐pHluorin (spH), to track how these fusions occurred. When astrocytes were mechanically stimulated we saw a slow burst of fusions, while other stimuli caused a relatively even sustained rate of fusion. We observed two distinct types of events, transient and full fusions, the proportion of which was stimulus dependent. Similarly, stability of the vesicle fusion pore with the plasma membrane varied with the stimulus. We describe the effects on fusion events resulting from expressing variants of exocytotic proteins, synaptotagmin 1 and SNAP25B. Studying the characteristics of astrocytic exocytosis will aid in the general understanding of this process and also events at the tripartite synapse, both in health and disease.