title: Inactivation of presenilins causes pre-synaptic impairment prior to post-synaptic dysfunction.
abstract: J. Neurochem. (2010) 115, 1215-1221.
  Synaptic dysfunction is widely thought to be a pathogenic precursor to neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the extent of synaptic loss provides the best correlate for the severity of dementia in AD patients. Presenilins 1 and 2 are the major causative genes of early-onset familial AD. Conditional inactivation of presenilins in the adult cerebral cortex results in synaptic dysfunction and memory impairment, followed by age-dependent neurodegeneration. To characterize further the consequence of presenilin inactivation in the synapse, we evaluated the temporal development of pre-synaptic and post-synaptic deficits in the Schaeffer-collateral pathway of presenilin conditional double knockout (PS cDKO) mice prior to onset of neurodegeneration. Following presenilin inactivation at 4 weeks, synaptic facilitation and probability of neurotransmitter release are impaired in PS cDKO mice at 5 weeks of age, whereas post-synaptic NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-mediated responses are normal at 5 weeks but impaired at 6 weeks of age. Long-term potentiation induced by theta burst stimulation is also reduced in PS cDKO mice at 6 weeks of age. These results show that loss of presenilins results in pre-synaptic deficits in short-term plasticity and probability of neurotransmitter release prior to post-synaptic NMDAR dysfunction, raising the possibility that presenilins may regulate post-synaptic NMDAR function in part via a trans-synaptic mechanism.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neurologic Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Dawei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kirkwood
authors.forename: Thomas C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Südhof
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001703:Biophysics; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D053763:Presenilins / Q000172:deficiency* / Q000378:metabolism; D011336:Probability; D018091:Receptors, AMPA / Q000378:metabolism; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000378:metabolism; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D053763:Presenilins; D018091:Receptors, AMPA; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate; D002118:Calcium