Role of Myosin Va in the plasticity of the vertebrate neuromuscular junction in vivo.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Myosin Va is a motor protein involved in vesicular transport and its absence leads to movement disorders in humans (Griscelli and Elejalde syndromes) and rodents (e.g. dilute lethal phenotype in mice). We examined the role of myosin Va in the postsynaptic plasticity of the vertebrate neuromuscular junction (NMJ).

Methodology/principal findings

Dilute lethal mice showed a good correlation between the propensity for seizures, and fragmentation and size reduction of NMJs. In an aneural C2C12 myoblast cell culture, expression of a dominant-negative fragment of myosin Va led to the accumulation of punctate structures containing the NMJ marker protein, rapsyn-GFP, in perinuclear clusters. In mouse hindlimb muscle, endogenous myosin Va co-precipitated with surface-expose

SUBMITTER: Roder IV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2587709 | biostudies-literature | 2008

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature