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NEUROSCIENCE: Enhanced: Synaptic Membranes Bend to the Will of a Neurotoxin
Joshua Zimmerberg and Leonid V. Chernomordik
In their Perspective, Zimmerberg and Chernomordik discuss the study by Rigoni et al. In the same issue that shows how the lipid products of a phospholipase present in snake venom reproduce the known paralytic effect of the lipase itself on presynaptic action in the neuromuscular junction. The lipid products shift the curvature of synaptic membranes toward or away from intermediate states of membrane fusion. This suggests a hemifusion intermediate state in synaptic vesicle release and explains the existence of rapid and spontaneous neurotransmitter release from vesicles.
The authors are in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-1855, USA. E-mail: joshz{at}helix.nih.gov, chernoml{at}mail.nih.gov
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:
In Science Magazine
REPORTS
Michela Rigoni, Paola Caccin, Steve Gschmeissner, Grielof Koster, Anthony D. Postle, Ornella Rossetto, Giampietro Schiavo, and Cesare Montecucco (9 December 2005) Science310 (5754), 1678.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1120640] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supporting Online Material »
Calcium Influx and Mitochondrial Alterations at Synapses Exposed to Snake Neurotoxins or Their Phospholipid Hydrolysis Products.
M. Rigoni, P. Pizzo, G. Schiavo, A. E. Weston, G. Zatti, P. Caccin, O. Rossetto, T. Pozzan, and C. Montecucco (2007)
J. Biol. Chem.
282, 11238-11245
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Membranes of the world unite!.
L. V. Chernomordik, J. Zimmerberg, and M. M. Kozlov (2006)
J. Cell Biol.
175, 201-207
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
