Regulation of presynaptic homeostasis at the level of synaptic vesicle filling, mobilization, fusion and recycling (B02)

• Subject Area: Molecular Biology and Physiology of Neurons and Glial Cells
• Term: since 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 221828878

Chemical synaptic transmission and the synaptic vesicle (SV) cycle are a means to achieving synaptic homeostasis. Using multiple new optogenetic tools allowing a very precise spatio-temporal manipulation of SV recycling in C. elegans developed during the second funding period, work will now focus on some of the newly identified players in synaptic homeostasis, namely the identification of the neuropeptides regulating SV loading and of the synaptic cAMP pathway in cholinergic neurotransmission, the characterization of the synaptic localization and function of voltage-gated calcium channels, and the role of newly identified genes in SV recycling.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1080: Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Neural Homeostasis
• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Alexander Gottschalk