Third, signaling per se takes place in endosomes, and the nature of the signaling, in addition to the duration of the signal, depends on the identity of the endosome. It is not only receptor identity that is responsible for eliciting different signaling outcomes, regulated endocytosis and differences

in postendocytic sorting also play a role. Endosomal mechanisms therefore contribute to ligand specificity via the same receptor, cell-type specificity via the same ligand-receptor system, and developmental switches in responsiveness, learn more among others. We focused our discussion on neurons, but without a doubt other cell types in the nervous system also have an endosomal trick or two up their sleeves to accomplish the important roles they play in development and nervous system function. “
“In eukaryotic cells, the localization of mRNA is an important mechanism to establish or maintain cell polarity, regulate gene expression, and sequester the activity of proteins. Neurons, with their complex dendritic and axonal structure, represent a special class of polarized cells with 103–104 synapses that can be modified independently. The establishment, maintenance, and regulation of this specificity are mediated by differences in protein composition within synapses. In neurons, mRNAs as well as polyribosomes have been observed throughout the dendritic arbor, often hundreds of microns from the Cell Cycle inhibitor cell

body (Steward and Levy, 1982). In the developing hippocampus, between 8% and 16% of dendritic spines possess a polyribosome under control conditions (Ostroff et al., 2002). Although Rutecarpine protein synthesis in neuronal cell bodies is undoubtedly important, emerging data indicate that local protein translation can play an important role in synaptic development and plasticity (Martin and Ephrussi, 2009, Richter and Klann, 2009 and Sutton and Schuman, 2006). The synaptic potentiation induced by BDNF requires local translation (Kang and Schuman, 1996) as do other forms of plasticity including long-term facilitation in Aplysia ( Martin et al., 1997), long-term depression

elicited by metabotropic glutamate receptor activation ( Huber et al., 2000), late-phase LTP ( Bradshaw et al., 2003), dopamine-induced plasticity ( Smith et al., 2005), and homeostatic plasticity induced by a blockade of spontaneous neurotransmitter release ( Sutton et al., 2004, Sutton et al., 2006 and Sutton et al., 2007). In most cases above, the specific proteins that are locally synthesized during plasticity have not been identified. Several individual mRNAs have been visualized in dendrites using in situ hybridization, including the mRNA for the Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent protein kinase alpha subunit, CaMKIIα (Burgin et al., 1990 and Mayford et al., 1996), MAP2 (Garner et al., 1988), Shank (Böckers et al., 2004), and β-actin (Tiruchinapalli et al., 2003).