Single nanoparticle tracking of N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors in cultured and intact brain tissue

This work was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine, and Marie Curie Individual Fellowship No. 326442.Recent developments in single-molecule imaging have revealed many biological mechanisms, providing high spatial and temporal resolution maps of molecular events. In neurobiology, these techniques unveiled that plasma membrane neurotransmitter receptors and transporters laterally diffuse at the surface of cultured brain cells. The photostability of bright nanoprobes, such as quantum dots (QDs), has given access to neurotransmitter receptor tracking over long periods of time with a high spatial resolution. However, our knowledge has been restricted to cultured systems, i.e., neurons and organotypic slices, therefore lacking several aspects of the intact brain rheology and connectivity. Here, we used QDs to track single glutamatergic N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) in acute brain slices. By delivering functionalized nanoparticles in vivo through intraventricular injections to rats expressing genetically engineered-tagged NMDAR, we successfully tracked the receptors in native brain tissue. Comparing NMDAR tracking to different classical brain preparations (acute brain slices, cultured organotypic brain slices, and cultured neurons) revealed that the surface diffusion properties shared several features and are also influenced by the nature of the extracellular environment. Together, we describe the experimental procedures to track plasma membrane NMDAR in dissociated and native brain tissue, paving the way for investigations aiming at characterizing receptor diffusion biophysics in intact tissue and exploring the physiopathological roles of receptor surface dynamics.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease

We identified rare coding variants associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in a 3-stage case-control study of 85,133 subjects. In stage 1, 34,174 samples were genotyped using a whole-exome microarray. In stage 2, we tested associated variants (P<1×10-4) in 35,962 independent samples using de novo genotyping and imputed genotypes. In stage 3, an additional 14,997 samples were used to test the most significant stage 2 associations (P<5×10-8) using imputed genotypes. We observed 3 novel genome-wide significant (GWS) AD associated non-synonymous variants; a protective variant in PLCG2 (rs72824905/p.P522R, P=5.38×10-10, OR=0.68, MAFcases=0.0059, MAFcontrols=0.0093), a risk variant in ABI3 (rs616338/p.S209F, P=4.56×10-10, OR=1.43, MAFcases=0.011, MAFcontrols=0.008), and a novel GWS variant in TREM2 (rs143332484/p.R62H, P=1.55×10-14, OR=1.67, MAFcases=0.0143, MAFcontrols=0.0089), a known AD susceptibility gene. These protein-coding changes are in genes highly expressed in microglia and highlight an immune-related protein-protein interaction network enriched for previously identified AD risk genes. These genetic findings provide additional evidence that the microglia-mediated innate immune response contributes directly to AD development

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Single nanoparticle tracking of <i>N</i>-methyl-d-aspartate receptors in cultured and intact brain tissue

Recent developments in single-molecule imaging have revealed many biological mechanisms, providing high spatial and temporal resolution maps of molecular events. In neurobiology, these techniques unveiled that plasma membrane neurotransmitter receptors and transporters laterally diffuse at the surface of cultured brain cells. The photostability of bright nanoprobes, such as quantum dots (QDs), has given access to neurotransmitter receptor tracking over long periods of time with a high spatial resolution. However, our knowledge has been restricted to cultured systems, i.e., neurons and organotypic slices, therefore lacking several aspects of the intact brain rheology and connectivity. Here, we used QDs to track single glutamatergic [Formula: see text]-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) in acute brain slices. By delivering functionalized nanoparticles in vivo through intraventricular injections to rats expressing genetically engineered-tagged NMDAR, we successfully tracked the receptors in native brain tissue. Comparing NMDAR tracking to different classical brain preparations (acute brain slices, cultured organotypic brain slices, and cultured neurons) revealed that the surface diffusion properties shared several features and are also influenced by the nature of the extracellular environment. Together, we describe the experimental procedures to track plasma membrane NMDAR in dissociated and native brain tissue, paving the way for investigations aiming at characterizing receptor diffusion biophysics in intact tissue and exploring the physiopathological roles of receptor surface dynamics