The Mechanical Microenvironment Regulates Axon Diameters Visualized by Cryo-Electron Tomography.

ABSTRACT: Axonal varicosities or swellings are enlarged structures along axon shafts and profoundly affect action potential propagation and synaptic transmission. These structures, which are defined by morphology, are highly heterogeneous and often investigated concerning their roles in neuropathology, but why they are present in the normal brain remains unknown. Combining confocal microscopy and cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET) with in vivo and in vitro systems, we report that non-uniform mechanical interactions with the microenvironment can lead to 10-fold diameter differences within an axon of the central nervous system (CNS). In the brains of adult Thy1-YFP transgenic mice, individual axons in the cortex displayed significantly higher diameter variation than those in the corpus callosum. When

SUBMITTER: Ma D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9406316 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature