title: Coordinated Spine Pruning and Maturation Mediated by Inter-Spine Competition for Cadherin/Catenin Complexes.
abstract: Dendritic spines are postsynaptic compartments of excitatory synapses that undergo dynamic changes during development, including rapid spinogenesis in early postnatal life and significant pruning during adolescence. Spine pruning defects have been implicated in developmental neurological disorders such as autism, yet much remains to be uncovered regarding its molecular mechanism. Here, we show that spine pruning and maturation in the mouse somatosensory cortex are coordinated via the cadherin/catenin cell adhesion complex and bidrectionally regulated by sensory experience. We further demonstrate that locally enhancing cadherin/catenin-dependent adhesion or photo-stimulating a contacting channelrhodopsin-expressing axon stabilized the manipulated spine and eliminated its neighbors, an effect requiring cadherin/catenin-dependent adhesion. Importantly, we show that differential cadherin/catenin-dependent adhesion between neighboring spines biased spine fate in vivo. These results suggest that activity-induced inter-spine competition for β-catenin provides specificity for concurrent spine maturation and elimination and thus is critical for the molecular control of spine pruning during neural circuit refinement.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Jie
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Bian
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Wan-Ying
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Shun-Ji
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China.
authors.forename: Zilong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China. Electronic address: yuxiang@ion.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D015820:Cadherins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D051177:Catenins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D049229:Dendritic Spines / Q000378:metabolism*; D051379:Mice; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes / Q000378:metabolism; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000378:metabolism; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000293:injuries
chemical_list: D015820:Cadherins; D051177:Catenins; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes