The research reveals that synaptotagmin-3 plays a role in high-frequency synaptic transmission.
“When brain cells are active, they release neurotransmitters to communicate with their neighbors,” said senior author Skyler Jackman, Ph.D., assistant scientist at the OHSU Vollum Institute. “If a cell is very active it can exhaust its supply of neurotransmitters, which can cause a breakdown of communication and brain dysfunction. It turns out that cells have a boost mode that replenishes their supply of neurotransmitters, but until now, we didn’t know the molecule that was responsible.
Scientists created “knock-out” mice that lacked the SYT3 gene. They discovered that in contrast to control mice that had the gene, those mice lacked the more robust level of synaptic transmission. “Imbalances in neurotransmitter release are the underlying causes for many neurological disorders,” said lead author Dennis Weingarten, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Jackman lab. In the future, he said, “understanding these molecular switches — such as SYT3 — is a crucial step for us to combat these diseases.”