Inhibitory effect of NAP-22 on the phosphatase activity of synaptojanin-1.

Endocytosis of the synaptic vesicle is a complicated process, in which many proteins and lipids participate. Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP(2) ) plays important roles in the process, and the dynamic regulation of this lipid is one of the key events. Synaptojanin is a PIP(2) phosphatase, and dephosphorylation of PIP(2) of the clathrin coated-vesicle results in the uncoating of the vesicle. NAP-22 is one of the major proteins of the neuronal detergent-resistant membrane microdomain and localizes in both the presynaptic plasma membrane and the synaptic vesicle. To elucidate the role of NAP-22 in synaptic function, a screening of the NAP-22 binding proteins through pull-down assay was performed. In addition to CapZ protein, synaptojanin-1 was detected by LC-MS/MS, and Western blotting using antisynaptojanin-1 confirmed this result. The interaction seems to be important in the course of synaptic vesicle endocytosis, because NAP-22 inhibited the phosphatase activity of synaptojanin in a dose-dependent manner. The inhibitory region for 5-phosphatase and the binding region for PIP(2) overlapped in the amino acid sequence of NAP-22, so elucidation of the regulatory mechanism of the PIP(2) binding ability of NAP-22 could be important in understanding the membrane dynamics at the presynaptic region.

L1CAM Is a Marker for Enriching Corticospinal Motor Neurons in the Developing Brain.

The cerebral cortical tissue of murine embryo and pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons can survive in the adult brain and extend axons to the spinal cord. These features suggest that cell transplantation can be a strategy to reconstruct the corticospinal tract (CST). It is unknown, however, which cell population makes for safe and effective donor cells. To address this issue, we grafted the cerebral cortex of E14.5 mouse to the brain of adult mice and found that the cells in the graft extending axons along the CST expressed CTIP2. By using CTIP2:GFP knock-in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), we identified L1CAM as a cell surface marker to enrich CTIP2+ cells. We sorted L1CAM+ cells from E14.5 mouse brain and confirmed that they extended a larger number of axons along the CST compared to L1CAM- cells. Our results suggest that sorting L1CAM+ cells from the embryonic cerebral cortex enriches subcortical projection neurons to reconstruct the CST.