Establishing synthetic ribbon-type active zones in a heterologous expression system.

ABSTRACT: Encoding of several sensory modalities into neural signals is mediated by ribbon synapses. The synaptic ribbon tethers synaptic vesicles at the presynaptic active zone (AZ) and may act as a super-scaffold organizing AZ topography. Here, we employed a synthetic biology approach to reconstitute structures mimicking ribbon-type AZs in human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells for probing minimal molecular requirements and studying presynaptic Ca²⁺ channel clustering. Co-expressing a membrane-targeted version of the AZ protein Bassoon and the ribbon core protein RIBEYE, we observed structures recapitulating basic aspects of ribbon-type AZs, which we call synthetic ribbons or SyRibbons. Super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and cryo-correlativ

SUBMITTER: Kapoor R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12799213 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature