Spatial properties of astrocyte gap junction coupling in the rat hippocampus
| Autor: | Stephanie Griemsmann, Christian Steinhäuser, Michel K. Herde, Daniel Minge, Stefanie Anders, Christian Henneberger |
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| Rok vydání: | 2014 |
| Předmět: |
Patch-Clamp Techniques
hippocampus Green Fluorescent Proteins Models Neurological Hippocampus Nerve Tissue Proteins Biology General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Mice gap junction coupling Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein medicine Animals Computer Simulation dentate gyrus Organic Chemicals Rats Wistar Anisotropy Alexa Fluor spatial properties Dentate gyrus astrocytes Temperature Gap junction Gap Junctions Articles Rats Coupling (electronics) medicine.anatomical_structure Microscopy Fluorescence Biophysics Pyramidal cell General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Neuroscience Research Article Signal Transduction Astrocyte |
| Zdroj: | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
| ISSN: | 1471-2970 0962-8436 |
| Popis: | Gap junction coupling enables astrocytes to form large networks. Its strength determines how easily a signalling molecule diffuses through the network and how far a locally initiated signal can spread. Changes of coupling strength are well-documented during development and in response to various stimuli. Precise quantification of coupling is needed for studying such modifications and their functional consequences. We therefore explored spatial properties of astrocyte coupling in a model simulating dye loading of single astrocytes. Dye spread into the astrocyte network could be characterized by a coupling length constant and coupling anisotropy. In experiments, the fluorescent marker Alexa Fluor 594 was used to measure these parameters in CA1 and dentate gyrus of the rat hippocampus. Coupling did not differ between regions but showed a temperature-dependence, partially owing to changes of intracellular diffusivity, detected by measuring coupling length constants but not the more variable cell counts of dye-coupled astrocytes. We further found that coupling is anisotropic depending on distance to the pyramidal cell layer, which correlated with regional differences of astrocyte morphology. This demonstrates that applying these new analytical approaches provides useful quantitative information on gap junction coupling and its heterogeneity. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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