Significance of novel non-muscle myosin-binding partners in the brain

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25293043
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: General anatomy (including histology/embryology)
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Sato Makoto 大阪大学, 連合小児発達学研究科, 教授 (10222019)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): OKA Yuichiro 大阪大学, 医学系研究科, 助教 (30614432) ; XIE Min-Jie 福井大学, 医学部, 助教 (40444210) ; IGUCHI Tokuichi 大阪大学, 医学系研究科, 助教 (60509305) ; KURODA Kazuki 福井大学, 医学部, 助教 (60557966) ; OMI Minoru 福井大学, 医学部, 特命助教 (00400416)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 神経科学 / 脳・神経 / 解剖学 / 細胞・組織

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Non-muscle myosin IIb plays a major role for regulation of actin dynamics in the dendritic spines. However, how myosin IIb alters cytoskeletal dynamics and how myosin IIb function is regulated during the spine maturation are still poorly understood. We found that one molecule (tentatively called as FRM) was a novel binding partner of myosin IIb and was expressed in the hippocampal and neocortical neurons. When endogenous FRM was knocked down in cultured hippocampal neurons, it inhibited spine shortening for spine maturation and changed the ratio of NMDA receptor expressions on spines. We generated FRM-conditional knockout mice in which loxP sites flank exon 4 in the FRM allele and crossed with Emx1-Cre mice for understanding of the roles of FRM in the brain. We found that these FRM mutant mice showed the anxiety-like behavior compared with the control mice. These data suggest that FRM is a novel myosin IIb modulator that controls spine maturation and synaptic function in the brain.

Free Research Field

神経科学