The Repertoire Of RNAs In Nerve Cell Processes

December 30, 2006 – 8:04 am | posted in Neurology / Neuroscience

Neurons transcribe mRNAs in their cell bodies; a small fraction of these mRNAs then travel into dendrites where they are translated. This local translation provides a means for neurons to quickly alter the protein composition of synapses in response to a specific stimulus. To identify mRNAs localized to the dendrites of hippocampal neurons, Poon et al. grew the neurons on custom filters with etched 3ìm pores and then mechanically separated axons, dendrites, and glial processes from cell bodies. They identified >100 mRNAs potentially localized to these processes by microarray analysis. Nineteen mRNAs were picked for further study. In situ hybridization confirmed that all 19 resided in MAP2-positive dendrites. Interestingly, a significant fraction of these mRNAs encoded molecules involved in translation, and several coimmunoprecipitated with the double-stranded RNAbinding protein Staufen, which has been implicated in RNA localization and translational regulation.

Michael M. Poon, Sang-Hyun Choi, Christina A. M. Jamieson, Daniel H. Geschwind, and Kelsey C. Martin

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