Sascha Seibert
Address:Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Charité Campus Mitte
Center for Anatomy
Institute of Integrative Neuroanatomy
Department “Electronmicroscopy and Molecular Neuroanatomy”
Research Group “Functional Cell Biology”, Prof. Dr. Gudrun Ahnert – Hilger
Philippstraße 12
10115 Berlin
Tel +49 (30) 450-528 428
Fax +49 (30) 450-528 912
sascha.seibert@charite.de
PhD-Project
"Synaptophysin in Neuronal Plasticity"
Synopsis
Long term structural memory arises in particular from adjustments in the strength of neuronal synapses. One of the parameters of synaptic strength is the amount of neurotransmitter released. This release depends on the efficiency of exo- and endocytosis of synaptic vesicles (SVs) and especially on their neurotransmitter load. Generally SVs are equipped with a certain set of proteins of which synaptophysin (syp) makes for the largest share by mass. Counterintuitive to the immense bioenergetic investment for syp biosynthesis, phenotypic deviations turn out to be relatively mild in syp depletion mutants (syp-/-).
Central to my Phd project is a comparative analysis of SV neurotransmitter loading including monoamines, glutamate and GABA from wild type and syp-/- mice.
As the most interesting result we found vesicular neurotransmitter uptake in syp-/- mice to be sexually dimorphic, so far without evidence for gender dependent differences in SV parameters relevant for transmitter transport, i. e. the copy number of vesicular neurotransmitter transporters per SV. Thus variations in syp function may explain gender differences in brain function under healthy and pathological conditions.
Supervisor
Prof. Dr. Gudrun Ahnert–Hilger
Dipl. – Ing. Degree of the Technical University Berlin (Diploma)
“Concentration and Time Dependent Effects of Corticosteroids on Differentiating Primary Cultures
of Subgranular Zone Precursor Cells from the Dentate Gyrus of the Murine Hippocampus”
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicin, Berlin – Buch / Prof. Dr. Gerd Kempermann
