Saturday, October 29, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
Understanding the normal formation, growth and development of synapses is fundamental to gaining insight into neurological disorders where these processes are disrupted such as Fragile X mental retardation, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) and autism. The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a type of synapse between a motor neuron and muscles. MicroRNAs are post-transcriptional repressors of gene expression that are potential regulators of the growth and development of the NMJ. Drosophila NMJ is used as model system because it has a conserved morphology and stereotyped connections. This project is focused on beginning to identify microRNAs that play an important role in NMJ growth and development.
MicroRNA sponge (miR-SP) technology is used to carry out the screening. MiR-SP technology involves the expression of specific microRNA constructs using different drivers to decrease microRNA in a spatial and temporal manner. We use the ubiquitous driver tubulin-Gal4 to decrease microRNA both pre- and post-synaptically. Immunoflourecence is used to visualize the morphology of the synaptic region and quantitative measurements of bouton number, branch number and synaptic area are collected on the NMJ of muscle 6/7. In this study we show MiR-8, a known regulator of synaptic development, is necessary for synaptic growth and morphology validating our methods for functional analysis of MiRs at the NMJ.