Shared resistance to aging and ALS in neuromuscular junctions of specific muscles.

ABSTRACT: Normal aging and neurodegenerative diseases both lead to structural and functional alterations in synapses. Comparison of synapses that are generally similar but respond differently to insults could provide the basis for discovering mechanisms that underlie susceptibility or resistance to damage. Here, we analyzed skeletal neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) in 16 mouse muscles to seek such differences. We find that muscles respond in one of three ways to aging. In some, including most limb and trunk muscles, age-related alterations to NMJs are progressive and extensive during the second postnatal year. NMJs in other muscles, such as extraocular muscles, are strikingly resistant to change. A third set of muscles, including several muscles of facial expression and the external anal sphinter, suc

SUBMITTER: Valdez G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3317643 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature