Event Details:
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The mRNA and protein landscape at neuronal synapses
Abstract
Neurons are morphologically complex cells which house thousands of synapses, but yet contain a single nucleus in the cell body. The proteins present at synapses are the drivers of synaptic transmission and plasticity. I will discuss my lab’s work on the local sourcing and remodeling of synaptic proteomes that arises from the localized translation of mRNAs.
Erin Schuman, Ph.D.
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Erin Schuman was born in California (1963). Schuman did her Bachelor, PhD and postdoctoral studies at the University of Southern California, Princeton and Stanford, respectively. In 1993, she joined the Biology Faculty at Caltech and from 1997-2009, Schuman was appointed an HHMI investigator. In 2009, she moved with her husband Gilles Laurent to Frankfurt, Germany to design and found the new Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. She is an elected member of EMBO, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the US National Academy of Sciences. She received the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the FENSKavli-ALBA Diversity Prize, the EMBO Women in Science Award, the Rosenstiel Award, the Brain Prize, and the Körber Prize. Erin Schuman has a long-standing interest molecular and cell biological processes that control protein synthesis and degradation in neurons and their synapses. The complex morphology of neurons, with most synapses located hundreds of microns from the cell body, presents a logistical challenge for the establishment, maintenance and modification of local synaptic proteomes. Neurons have solved this problem by localizing important cell biological machines, including ribosomes and proteasomes, within dendrites and axons. Following on the lab’s initial discovery in 1996 that proteins made locally in dendrites are required for synaptic plasticity, they identified in molecular detail the mRNA and ribosome population present in neuronal dendrites and axons. In addition, they have developed new tools to label, purify, identify and visualize newly synthesized proteins in neurons and other cells using non-canonical amino acid metabolic labeling, click chemistry, and mutation of cell-biological enzymes (the BONCAT and FUNCAT techniques). Taken together, the lab’s work has elucidated how gene expression can be regulated in the minute subcellular space of the synapse and how decentralization of cell biological machines allows the single neuron to manage subcellular proteomes in a vast volume. The lab’s current work focuses on the nature and specialization of mRNA translation and protein degradation machines and mechanisms in neurons, including in vivo studies.
Hosted by - Xiaoke Chen (Xiaoke Chen Lab)
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About the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Seminar Series
The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute seminar series brings together the Stanford neuroscience community to discuss cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary brain research, from biochemistry to behavior and beyond.
Topics include new discoveries in fundamental neurobiology; advances in human and translational neuroscience; insights from computational and theoretical neuroscience; and the development of novel research technologies and neuro-engineering breakthroughs.
Unless otherwise noted, seminars are held Thursdays at 12:00 noon PT.
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