Postsynaptic signaling of new players at synapses
作者单位：Department of Biochemistry Biotechnology Research Institute and Molecular Neuroscience CenterHong Kong University of Science and TechnologyClear Water Bay
会议名称：《中国神经科学学会第六届学术会议暨学会成立十周年庆祝大会》
会议日期：2005年
学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 07[理学] 071006[理学-神经生物学]
关 键 词：postsynaptic sinaling communication
摘 要：正Neurons communicate with each other at synapses. Most of our knowledge about how synaptic connections are formed and maintained is derived from studies of the neuromuscular junction （NMJ）. During the past decade, enormous progress has been made in identifying and characterizing the molecular players at the postsynaptic side of synapses. Several receptor tyrosine kinases, such as MuSK, ErbB and TrkB, have been implicated to play critical roles in mediating the formation and maintenance of the NMJ. In this talk, I will discuss some of the novel signaling mechanisms identified in our laboratory, involving molecules such as cyclin-dependent kinase Cdk5 which belongs to the Cdk family, and EphA4, a member of the largest family of receptor tyrosine kinases. While early studies on these molecules focused on the roles in axonal guidance, their unexpected involvement in modulating synaptic functions has recently begun to be unraveled. Elucidating the functional significance of these proteins in muscle not only expands our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic development, it also provides new insights into the modulation of neurotrophic factor signaling in the nervous system.