NEURONAL GLYCOPROTEIN M6A AS A KEY REGULATOR OF SYNAPTIC PLASTICITY DURING EXTRA UTERINE BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

APARICIO GABRIELA; LEON, ANTONELLA; FRASCH, AC; CAMILA SCORTICATI

Cordoba

Congreso; XXXIII CONGRESO ANUAL SAN 2018; 2018

SAN

During the early stages of development and in adulthood, neurons of the central nervous systemsuffer changes in the formation, maintenance and elimination of synapses. This process, synapticpruning, is linked to many neurological diseases as Alzheimer?s disease and schizophrenia. Theneuronal membrane glycoprotein M6a had been widely related to neuronal structural plasticity. Inhippocampal cultured neurons, M6a promotes neurite and axonal outgrowth, filopodia/spinesformation and enhance the number of synapses. Variations in GPM6A gene expression and SNPsare linked to mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, mental retardation andAlzheimer?s disease. However, there is no evidence linking M6a to the synaptic pruning process,nor potential ligands of M6a that modified their levels. Therefore, we aim to analyse the variationof M6a levels throughout brain development. To this end, Sprague-Dawley rats were sacrificedfrom the day of their birth, P0 (postnatal, zero), to adulthood, P90 and samples fromhippocampus, prefrontal cortex, cerebellum and striatum were taken. We observed that the levelsof M6a vary from P0 to P90 and this variation depends on the tissue analyzed. Moreover, weshowed that M6a is expressed in the striatum, which had not been yet described. We alsogenerated and characterized a recombinant protein that will allowsus to identify M6a ligands forunderstand how this protein is related to the synaptic pruning.