Abstract
RECENT studies in invertebrates indicate that a rapid genomic response to neuronal stimulation has a critical role in long-term changes in synaptic efficacy. Because several of the genes (immediately early genes; IEGs) that respond rapidly to growth factor stimulation of vertebrate cells in vitro are also activated by neuronal stimulation in vivo, attention has focused on the possibility that they play a part in synaptic plasticity in vertebrate nervous systems. Four IEGs thought to encode transcription factors, zif/2685 (also termed Egr-114, NGFI-A15, Krox 2416), c-fos17, c-jun18, and jun-B7 are rapidly induced in the brain by seizure activity, and we have now studied the induction of these genes in a well-characterized model of synaptic plasticity in the vertebrate brain-long-term potentiation (LTP) of the perforant path-granule cell (pp-gc) synapse in vivo. We found that high-frequency (but not low-frequency) stimulation of the pp-gc synapse markedly increases zif/268 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels in the ipsilateral granule cell neurons; mRNA of c-fos, c-jun and jun-B is less consistently increased. The stimulus frequency and intensity required to induce LTP, which is also seen only ipsilaterally, and both responses are blocked by NMDA-receptor antagonists as well as by convergent synaptic inhibitory inputs already known to block LTP. Accordingly, zif/268 mRNA levels and LTP seem to be regulated by similar synaptic mechanisms.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 474-476 |
Number of pages | 3 |
Journal | Nature |
Volume | 340 |
Issue number | 6233 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1989 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General