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Synaptic Efficacy Enhanced by Glial Cells in Vitro
Abstract
In the developing nervous system, glial cells guide axons to their target areas, but it is unknown whether they help neurons to establish functional synaptic connections. The role of glial cells in synapse formation and function was studied in cultures of purified neurons from the rat central nervous system. In glia-free cultures, retinal ganglion cells formed synapses with normal ultrastructure but displayed little spontaneous synaptic activity and high failure rates in evoked synaptic transmission. In cocultures with neuroglia, the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous postsynaptic currents were potentiated by 70-fold and 5-fold, respectively, and fewer transmission failures occurred. Glial cells increased the action potential–independent quantal release by 12-fold without affecting neuronal survival. Thus, developing neurons in culture form inefficient synapses that require glial signals to become fully functional.
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Cited by
Tripartite synapses: glia, the unacknowledged partner
Araque, A., Parpura, V., Sanzgiri, R. P., & Haydon, P. G. (1999) · Trends in Neurosciences · doi:10.1016/s0166-2236(98)01349-6 · Cited by 2,529
The induction of pain: an integrative review
Millan, M. J. (1999) · Progress in Neurobiology · doi:10.1016/s0301-0082(98)00048-3 · Cited by 1,774
Thrombospondins are astrocyte-secreted proteins that promote CNS synaptogenesis
Christopherson, K. S., Ullian, E. M., Stokes, C. C. A., Mullowney, C. E., Hell, J. W., Agah, A., Lawler, J., Mosher, D. F., Bornstein, P., & Barres, B. A. (2005) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2004.12.020 · Cited by 1,688
Self-citationCNS synaptogenesis promoted by glia-derived cholesterol
Mauch, D. H., Nägler, K., Schumacher, S., Göritz, C., Müller, E.-C., Otto, A., & Pfrieger, F. W. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.294.5545.1354 · Cited by 1,711
Self-citationVerkhratsky, A., & Nedergaard, M. (2018) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00042.2016 · Cited by 1,678
Metadata
- Authors
- Pfrieger, F. W., & Barres, B. A.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1997-09-12
- Volume
- 277
- Issue
- 5332
- Pages
- 1684-1687
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1996603253
- Cited by
- 793
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 8.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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