CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

We have identified components of the cytoskeleton and signaling pathways that play an importantrole in dendritic growth (Van Aelst & Cline, 2004; Conde & Caceres, 2009). A key aspect sparselyexplored in relation to dendritic development involves the mechanisms responsible for theregulation of traffic and adding membrane. The primary sites of synthesis of protein and lipidcomponents of the plasma membrane are organelles of the secretory pathway, including the ERand the Golgi apparatus (GA).In the case of neurons, it has been shown to components of the secretory pathway, and inparticular AG, are particularly distinguished from the distribution observed in other mammaliancells (Horton & Ehlers., 2003; Horton et al, 2005). Unlike what happens in most non-neural cellswhere the AG consisting of cisterns located in the perinuclear region in neurons this organelle islocated not only in the cell body, but also in dendrites which form discrete structures tubule-vesicular containing Golgi markers, designated GOPs. His appearance follows the dendriticdevelopment and the number increases in response to factors that promote differentiation anddendritic branching and / or the formation of post-synaptic specializations. It has been shown thattraffic RE the AG increases significantly during the dendritic differentiation (Aridor et al., 2004),and GOPs are located at branch points (Horton et al., 2005) and in the immediate vicinity of sitesContact neuron-neuron (Sytnyk et al., 2002). These observations suggest that the spatialdistribution of elements in the secretory pathway could play a key role in dendritic morphogenesis(Horton et al., 2005). Taken together, these results suggest that the correct positioning ofelements of the secretory pathway, are required for the development and generation dendriticpattern specific branch.