3I). These results indicate that Cbln1 bound to NRXs in a manner distinct from NLs or LRRTMs. As
Cbln1 binds to GluD2 at the postsynaptic site, we next examined whether the binding between Cbln1 and GluD2 was affected by extracellular Ca2+ concentrations. Immunocytochemical analyses of the surface HA-Cbln1 revealed that HA-Cbln1 bound to HEK293 expressing GluD2 under low extracellular Ca2+ concentrations (Fig. 3J). Together, these results indicate that, unlike NRX/NL- or NRX/LRRTM-based cell adhesion, trans-synaptic cell adhesion mediated by NRX1β(S4+)/Cbln1/GluD2 is resistant to low extracellular Ca2+ concentrations. Cbln1, which accumulates at the synaptic junction by binding to GluD2, serves as a presynaptic organizer (Matsuda et al., 2010). As NRX is known to recruit http://www.selleckchem.com/products/pexidartinib-plx3397.html synaptic vesicles (Dean et al., 2003), it probably mediates the presynaptic organizing function of Cbln1. To examine this hypothesis, we first examined whether Cbln1 and GluD2 formed a tripartite complex this website with NRXs. Immunocytochemical analyses showed that NRX1β(S4+)-Fc but not NRX1β(S4−)-Fc specifically bound to HEK293 cells expressing GluD2 only when HA-Cbln1 was
added to the culture medium (Fig. 4A). Similarly, when NRX1β(S4+) and GFP were coexpressed in cbln1-null cerebellar granule cells, NRX1β(S4+) accumulated in GFP-positive axons around the beads coated with HA-Cbln1 but not around uncoated beads (Fig. 4B). We expressed NRX1β(S4+)-Flag, in which the region necessary for binding to presynaptic organizing proteins such as calcium/calmodulin-dependent serine protein kinase (CASK) (Hata et al., 1996; Dean et al., 2003) was disrupted by attaching the Flag tag at the extreme also C-terminus of NRX1β(S4+) (Fairless et al., 2008) in wild-type hippocampal neurons. Importantly, NRX1β(S4+)-Flag also accumulated in axons contacting the beads coated with HA-Cbln1 without recruiting the presynaptic marker synapsin I (Supporting
information Fig. S2A), indicating that accumulation of NRX1β(S4+) was directly caused by HA-Cbln1 and not by other presynaptic molecules that bound to the C-terminus of NRX1β(S4+). In addition, not only overexpressed NRX1β(S4+), but also endogenous NRXs in cbln1-null granule cells preferentially accumulated in axons contacting the beads coated with HA-Cbln1 (Supporting Information Fig. S2B). Furthermore, NRX1β(S4+)-Flag expressed in cbln1-null granule cells accumulated in axons that crossed Purkinje cells only when HA-Cbln1 was added to the culture medium (Supporting Information Fig. S2C), indicating that Cbln1, which was bound to GluD2 on Purkinje cell dendrites, induced clustering of NRX1β(S4+) at presynaptic terminals. Although beads coated with Cbln1 accumulated synapsin I-positive synaptic vesicles in cbln1-null granule cell axons (Matsuda et al., 2010), addition of NRX1β(S4+)-Fc and not NRX1β(S4−)-Fc to the culture medium significantly inhibited Cbln1 presynaptic organizing function (Fig. 4C).