Event Details:
Making Memories Last: Genes, Neurons and Synapses
Kelsey Martin, MD, PhD
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Psychiatry
Dean of the Medical School,
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Host: Jennifer Raymond
Abstract
My lab is interested in understanding the cell biological mechanisms by which experience alters the connectivity of neurons in the brain to store long-term memories. We study long-lasting forms of synaptic plasticity that require changes in gene expression for their persistence. The remarkable polarity and compartmentalization of neurons poses two central challenges to the regulation of gene expression during neuronal plasticity. First, the requirement for new transcription means that signals are relayed the long distance from the synapse to the nucleus to alter RNA synthesis. Second, the fact that synaptic plasticity can be synapse-specific—i.e. that experience-dependent changes can occur at some but not all synapses made by a single neuron—indicates that experience-dependent gene expression can be spatially regulated at the level of synapses. In the first part of my talk, I will describe our studies of synapse to nucleus signaling pathways that regulate transcription. The second part of my talk will focus on post-transcriptional regulation in the cytoplasm through mRNA localization, mRNA stability and local translation.
Related papers
[1] Toh Hean Ch'ng, Besim Uzgil, Peter Lin, Nuraly K. Avliyakulov,Thomas J.O'Dell, Kelsey C.Martin (2012). Activity-Dependent Transport of the Transcriptional Coactivator CRTC1 from Synapse to Nucleus. Cell 150, 207–221. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.05.027
[2] Ji-Ann Lee, Andrey Damianov, Chia-Ho Lin, Mariana Fontes, Neelroop N. Parikshak, Erik S. Anderson, Daniel H. Geschwind, Douglas L. Black, Kelsey C. Martin (2015). Cytoplasmic Rbfox1 Regulates the Expression of Synaptic and Autism-Related Genes. Neuron 89, 1, 113-128. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.11.025