Organization of the Core Structure of the Postsynaptic Density

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2008 Mar 11

PMID 18326622

Citations 148

Authors

Xiaobing Chen

Christine Winters

Rita Azzam

Xiang Li

James A Galbraith

Richard D Leapman

Thomas S Reese

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Much is known about the composition and function of the postsynaptic density (PSD), but less is known about its molecular organization. We use EM tomography to delineate the organization of PSDs at glutamatergic synapses in rat hippocampal cultures. The core of the PSD is dominated by vertically oriented filaments, and ImmunoGold labeling shows that PSD-95 is a component of these filaments. Vertical filaments contact two types of transmembrane structures whose sizes and positions match those of glutamate receptors and intermesh with two types of horizontally oriented filaments lying 10-20 nm from the postsynaptic membrane. The longer horizontal filaments link adjacent NMDAR-type structures, whereas the smaller filaments link both NMDA- and AMPAR-type structures. The orthogonal, interlinked scaffold of filaments at the core of the PSD provides a structural basis for understanding dynamic aspects of postsynaptic function.

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