Functional Prions: A Perspective
Status: This talk is in preparation - details may change
Long-term memory storage depends on transcription in the nucleus, an organelle shared by all synapses of a neuron. This raises a question: Are long-term changes cell-wide, or can induced gene products be spatially compartmentalized so that they selectively alter the function of some synapses and not others? In Aplysia, a neuron-specific isoform of cytoplasmic polyadenylation element–binding protein (CPEB) regulates local synaptic protein synthesis. Local protein synthesis serves two functions: (1) it marks the activated synapse and thus confers synapse specificity, and (2) it stabilizes the synaptic growth associated with long-term memory. CPEB may serve as a stabilizer because it has prion-like properties. Prion proteins have the unusual ability to fold into functionally distinct conformations, one of which is self-perpetuating. The dominant, prion-like form of CPEB has the greatest capacity to stimulate translation of CPEB-regulated mRNA. Conversion of CPEB to a prion-like state in stimulated synapses may help to maintain long-term synaptic changes associated with memory storage.
Date: 20 March 2015, 12:00
Venue: Sherrington Building, off Parks Road OX1 3PT
Venue Details: Large Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Eric Kandel (Columbia University, New York )
Organising department: Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour
Organiser: Fiona Woods (University of Oxford, Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour)
Organiser contact email address: fiona.woods@cncb.ox.ac.uk
Hosts: Professor Jonathan Flint (University of Oxford), Professor Gero Miesenboeck (University of Oxford)
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Fiona Woods