Systematic Quantification of Synapses in Primary Neuronal Culture.

ABSTRACT: Most neurological disorders display impaired synaptic connectivity. Hence, modulation of synapse formation may have therapeutic relevance. However, the high density and small size of synapses complicate their quantification. To improve synapse-oriented screens, we analyzed the labeling performance of synapse-targeting antibodies on neuronal cell cultures using segmentation-independent image analysis based on sliding window correlation. When assessing pairwise colocalization, a common readout for mature synapses, overlap was incomplete and confounded by spurious signals. To circumvent this, we implemented a proximity ligation-based approach that only leads to a signal when two markers are sufficiently close. We applied this approach to different marker combinations and demonstrate its utili

SUBMITTER: Verstraelen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7516133 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature