Imaging AMPA-Type Receptors in Hippocampal Neurons

Synaptic plasticity is the ability of the
connections between nerve
cells, called synapses, to change in strength. The
presence of the
AMPA-type glutamate receptors at the synapse
controls the strength
of excitatory transmission and their number can be
modulated.
There is however a need in technologies to visualize
these events.
In this study, a recently established protein-
labeling technique was
applied to label individually AMPA receptor subunits
at the surface of
neurons. Moreover, these subunits are
integrated into heteromeric receptors and targeted
to functional
synapses. The diffusion of receptors at the surface
of living neurons
was dependent on the subunit composition.
High-resolution images, sub-difraction limited, of
hippocampal
neurons stained for GluR2 were acquired with an
experimental
scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) with
the aim to
image single molecules.

This study should help to shed some light on the
molecular aspects
of the synaptic plasticity and could be particularly
interesting to neuroscientists and physicists
interesting in life sciences
applications.