GABAergic terminals are required for postsynaptic clustering of dystrophin but not of GABAA receptors and gephyrin

I Brünig, A Suter, I Knuesel, B Lüscher… - Journal of …, 2002 - Soc Neuroscience
I Brünig, A Suter, I Knuesel, B Lüscher, JM Fritschy
Journal of Neuroscience, 2002Soc Neuroscience
In rat hippocampal cultures, we show by multilabeling immunocytochemistry that pyramidal
cells, which receive little or no GABAergic input, mistarget α2-GABAA receptors and
gephyrin to glutamatergic terminals. This mismatch does not occur in neurons innervated by
numerous GABAergic terminals. A similar phenomenon has been reported for isolated
autaptic hippocampal neurons. GABAergic synapses typically form multiple release sites
apposed to GABAA receptor and gephyrin clusters. Remarkably, dystrophin, a protein highly …
In rat hippocampal cultures, we show by multilabeling immunocytochemistry that pyramidal cells, which receive little or no GABAergic input, mistarget α2-GABAA receptors and gephyrin to glutamatergic terminals. This mismatch does not occur in neurons innervated by numerous GABAergic terminals. A similar phenomenon has been reported for isolated autaptic hippocampal neurons . GABAergic synapses typically form multiple release sites apposed to GABAA receptor and gephyrin clusters. Remarkably, dystrophin, a protein highly abundant in skeletal muscle membranes, is extensively colocalized with α2-GABAA receptors exclusively opposite GABAergic terminals. In addition, selective apposition of syntrophin and β-dystroglycan to GABAergic presynaptic terminals suggests that the entire dystrophin-associated protein complex (DPC) clusters at GABAergic synapses. In contrast to gephyrin and GABAAreceptors, DPC proteins are not mistargeted to glutamatergic synapses, indicating independent clustering mechanisms. This was confirmed in hippocampal neurons cultured from GABAA receptor γ2 subunit-deficient mice. Clustering of GABAA receptor and gephyrin in these neurons was strongly impaired, whereas clustering of dystrophin and associated proteins was unaffected by the absence of the γ2 subunit. Our results indicate that accumulation of dystrophin and DPC proteins at GABAergic synapses occurs independently of postsynaptic GABAAreceptors and gephyrin. We suggest that selective signaling from GABAergic terminals contributes to postsynaptic clustering of dystrophin.
Soc Neuroscience