Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Optical analysis of the action range of glutamate in the neuropil
doi: 10.1101/2021.02.05.429974
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A)The simulation environment c“calc” ( V. Matveev, A. Sherman, R. S. Zucker, Biophysj. 83, 1368– 1373 (2002) ) (as “spherical symmetry”) was used to replicate the neuropil diffusion models of ( D. A. Rusakov, D. M. Kullmann, J. Neurosci. 18, 3158–3170 (1998), B. Barbour, Journal of Neuroscience. 21, 7969–7984 (2001) ) and to simulate synaptic glutamate release, binding to iGluSnFr and fluorescence activation of iGluSnFr. A gaussian-shaped, fusion pore-like source of glutamate (FWHM 5 nm) was placed at the origin and glutamate was released in a peak-like fashion according to: t * sigma^2 * exp(-sigma*t) (t in ms, sigma=39), following ( D. A. Rusakov, D. M. Kullmann, J. Neurosci. 18, 3158–3170 (1998) ). Glutamate transporters were modeled by omitting the translocation step as fixed glutamate “buffers” at a concentration of 100 µM in the extracellular volume. Omitting the translocation is justified as it is slow and has a negligible effect on free glutamate (not shown, also see B. Barbour, Journal of Neuroscience. 21, 7969– 7984 (2001)). No pre- or postsynaptic structures around the release were modeled as previous studies showed that at the distances considered here (>1000 nm) they have almost no effect on the glutamate concentration. Continuous lines throughout this figure represent calculations in the presence of glutamate “buffers” (k+ = 5e06 /(Ms), k- = 100/s), dashed lines in their absence. An effective glutamate diffusion coefficient D=250µm^2/s was employed to account for the tortuousity of the neuropil similar to ( D. A. Rusakov, D. M. Kullmann, J. Neurosci. 18, 3158–3170 (1998), B. Barbour, Journal of Neuroscience. 21, 7969–7984 (2001) ). The vesicle contained 7000 molecules of glutamate according to recent estimates (see discussion for details). Note that at distances of ≥1500 nm free glutamate concentrations remain below 1 µM, show a slowed rise and peak with at least 1 ms delay. (B) The fraction of iGluSnFr molecules reaching the fluorescent state after synaptic release at 1500 and 2000 nm distance from the release site remained below 0.3%. In other words, classical neuropil diffusion models predict minimal iGluSnFr responses. We modeled iGluSnFr according to ( M. Armbruster, C. G. Dulla, J. S. Diamond, eLife. 9, 10404–26 (2020) ) with 3 states: no glutamate bound, glutamate bound and non-fluorescent and glutamate bound and fluorescent. Rate constants were also taken from that study. (C) Conversion of fractional sniffer activation to fluorescent signals using the fluorescence constants for activated and non-activated iGluSnFr molecules indicated (taken from ( M. Armbruster, C. G. Dulla, J. S. Diamond, eLife. 9, 10404–26 (2020) )). Note that the predicted DF/F iGluSnFr signals remain below 1%, whereas we experimentally determined iGluSnFr amplitudes at a distance of 1500 nm to be ∼5.4% (black horizontal line) following spontaneous, putative quantal, release events. The blue arrow denotes the almost 5-fold differences between the experimental observation and theoretical prediction.
Article Snippet: Imaging data for the optical reporter of synaptically released glutamate (iGluSnFr) was acquired on a Nikon A1R MP 2-photon scanning microscope (Nikon) equipped with a BVC-700 (Dagan) amplifier and using WinWCP software (Strathclyde) for current clamp recording.
Techniques: Diffusion-based Assay, Binding Assay, Fluorescence, Activation Assay, Translocation Assay, Concentration Assay