Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon arbors within the optic tectum are refined in development through a dynamic process of activity-dependent remodeling. The synaptic adhesion molecule N-cadherin is a candidate for mediating selective stabilization and elaboration of RGC axons due to its localization to perisynaptic sites and its modifiability by neural activity. RGCs of Xenopus tadpoles were co-transfected with plasmids encoding a dominant negative N-cadherin (N-cadDeltaE) and eGFP or eYFP. Using two-photon in vivo time-lapse imaging, we found that axons expressing N-cadDeltaE became less elaborate than controls over three days of daily live imaging. Shorter interval time-lapse imaging of axons expressing synaptophysin-GFP to visualize putative synaptic sites revealed that N-cadDeltaE expressing axons form fewer stable branches than controls and that stabilization of axonal branches at synaptic sites is altered. We conclude that N-cadherin participates in the stabilization of axonal branches in the Xenopus retinotectal system.

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