RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Freeze-frame imaging of synaptic activity using SynTagMA
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 538041
DO 10.1101/538041
A1 Alberto Perez-Alvarez
A1 Brenna C. Fearey
A1 Ryan J. O’Toole
A1 Wei Yang
A1 Ignacio Arganda-Carreras
A1 Paul J. Lamothe-Molina
A1 Benjamien Moeyaert
A1 Manuel A. Mohr
A1 Lauren C. Panzera
A1 Christian Schulze
A1 Eric R. Schreiter
A1 J. Simon Wiegert
A1 Christine E. Gee
A1 Michael B. Hoppa
A1 Thomas G. Oertner
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/16/538041.abstract
AB Information within the brain travels from neuron to neuron across billions of synapses. At any given moment, only a small subset of neurons and synapses are active, but finding the active synapses in brain tissue has been a technical challenge. To tag active synapses in a user-defined time window, we developed SynTagMA. Upon 395-405 nm illumination, this genetically encoded marker of activity converts from green to red fluorescence if, and only if, it is bound to calcium. Targeted to presynaptic terminals, preSynTagMA allows discrimination between active and silent axons. Targeted to excitatory postsynapses, postSynTagMA creates a snapshot of synapses active just before photoconversion. To analyze large datasets, we developed software to identify and track the fluorescence of thousands of individual synapses in tissue. Together, these tools provide an efficient method for repeatedly mapping active neurons and synapses in cell culture, slice preparations, and in vivo during behavior.