Postsynaptic autophosphorylation of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) at Thr286/287 is crucial for the induction of long-term potentiation at many glutamatergic synapses, and has also been implicated in the persistence of synaptic potentiation. However, the availability of CaMKII phosphorylated at Thr286/287 at individual glutamatergic synapses in vivo is unclear. We used pos...

The miniature1 (mn1) seed phenotype in maize (Zea mays) is due to a loss-of-function mutation at the Mn1 locus that encodes a cell wall invertase (INCW2) that localizes exclusively to the basal endosperm transfer cells (BETCs) of developing seeds. A common feature of all transfer cells is the labyrinth-like wall-in-growth (WIG) that increases the plasma membrane area, thereby enhancing transpor...

Platelets contain two main types of secretory organelles, the dense granules and the alpha-granules. P-selectin, a specific receptor for leukocytes that is present in the alpha-granule membrane, has also been demonstrated to be associated with the dense granule limiting membrane, showing that a relationship exists between these two types of secretory granules. We have previously shown that the ...

GluN2B (GluRepsilon2/NR2B) subunit is involved in synapse development, synaptic plasticity, and cognitive function. However, its roles in synaptic expression and function of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) in the brain remain mostly unknown because of the neonatal lethality of global knock-out mice. To address this, we generated conditional knock-out mice, in which GluN2B was ablated exclusively in hip...

The local expression of proteins involved in handling glutamate may be regulated by the number and activity of synapses in regions of glutamatergic innervation. The systematically varying innervation of inner hair cells (IHCs) of the cochlea provides a model to test this suggestion. IHCs are glutamatergic and form a single row along the cochlear spiral. Along this row the number of afferent fib...

Rats were implanted with mini osmotic pumps delivering sodium [35S]sulphate and their newly synthesized proteoglycans were labelled over a 146 h period (steady-state labelling). Proteoglycan turnover was measured in vivo using a chase protocol. Glomerular proteoglycans were recovered quantitatively and the perlecan present was isolated by immunoprecipitation. The procedure allows newly synthesi...