Morphological characterization of molecular complexes present in the synaptic cleft

被引：77

作者：

Lucic, V ^{[1
]}

Yang, T ^{[1
]}

Schweikert, G ^{[1
]}

Förster, F ^{[1
]}

Baumeister, W ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Max Planck Inst Biochem, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany

来源：

STRUCTURE | 2005年 / 13卷 / 03期

关键词：

D O I：

10.1016/j.str.2005.02.005

中图分类号：

Q5 [生物化学]; Q7 [分子生物学];

学科分类号：

071010 ; 081704 ;

摘要：

We obtained tomograms of isolated mammalian excitatory synapses by cryo-electron tomography. This method allows the investigation of biological material in the frozen-hydrated state, without staining, and can therefore provide reliable structural information at the molecular level. We developed an automated procedure for the segmentation of molecular complexes present in the synaptic cleft based on thresholding and connectivity, and calculated several morphological characteristics of these complexes. Extensive lateral connections along the synaptic cleft are shown to form a highly connected structure with a complex topology. Our results are essentially parameter-free, i.e., they do not depend on the choice of certain parameter values (such as threshold). In addition, the results are not sensitive to noise; the same conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of both nondenoised and denoised tomograms.

引用

页码：423 / 434

页数：12

共 32 条

[1] Knowing a nascent synapse when you see it [J].