title: Spatial and temporal characteristics of normal and perturbed vesicle transport.
abstract: Efficient intracellular transport is essential for healthy cellular function and structural integrity, and problems in this pathway can lead to neuronal cell death and disease. To spatially and temporally evaluate how transport defects are initiated, we adapted a primary neuronal culture system from Drosophila larval brains to visualize the movement dynamics of several cargos/organelles along a 90 micron axonal neurite over time. All six vesicles/organelles imaged showed robust bi-directional motility at both day 1 and day 2. Reduction of motor proteins decreased the movement of vesicles/organelles with increased numbers of neurite blocks. Neuronal growth was also perturbed with reduction of motor proteins. Strikingly, we found that all blockages were not fixed, permanent blocks that impeded transport of vesicles as previously thought, but that some blocks were dynamic clusters of vesicles that resolved over time. Taken together, our findings suggest that non-resolving blocks may likely initiate deleterious pathways leading to death and degeneration, while resolving blocks may be benign. Therefore evaluating the spatial and temporal characteristics of vesicle transport has important implications for our understanding of how transport defects can affect other pathways to initiate death and degeneration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Gary J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Iacobucci
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Noura Abdel
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Aida Andrades
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Valtueña
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Tapan Kumar
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Nayak
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Shermali
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gunawardena
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001370:Axonal Transport; D001369:Axons / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000166:cytology; D004398:Dyneins / Q000378:metabolism; D016547:Kinesins / Q000378:metabolism; D007814:Larva / Q000166:cytology; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C515209:Khc protein, Drosophila; D004398:Dyneins; D016547:Kinesins