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Selective presence of a giant saccular organelle in the axon initial segment of a subpopulation of layer V pyramidal neurons

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Abstract

Recently it has been shown that a giant saccular organelle (GSO) of unknown function is present in the axon initial segment (AIS) of an uncharacterized population of pyramidal cells of the rodent neocortex. Using tract-tracing methods and immunocytochemistry, in the present study we show that in rodents this GSO is present in the AIS of subpopulations of layer V pyramidal neurons projecting to various subcortical, non-thalamic targets, including the spinal cord. GSO-containing neurons express SMI32 and some of them are under the control of the Thy-1 gene promoter. In addition, our results demonstrate that the GSO expresses the inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate receptor 1 (IP3R1) and the sarco (endo) plasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase 2, both in rodent and human neocortex. These results indicate the involvement of the GSO in the regulation of Ca2+ levels in the AIS in a particular subpopulation of layer V neurons that give rise to subcortical non-thalamic descending projections.

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Acknowledgments

The authors declare no conflict of interest. This work was supported by grants from the following entities: SAF 2010-18218 to AM and BFU2012-34963 to JD from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; CIBERNED (CB06/05/0066; Spain); and from the Cajal Blue Brain Project (Spanish partner of the Blue Brain Project initiative from EPFL). We thank Dr. Rasband (Dept. of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA) for providing antibodies to βIV spectrin. We also thank Dr. Guzmán and Dr. Galve-Roperh (Dept. Biochemistry, Fac. Biology, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain) for providing brain sections from Thy1-eYFP-H mice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Cajal, CSIC, 28002, Madrid, Spain

    Alejandro Antón-Fernández, Javier DeFelipe & Alberto Muñoz

  2. Laboratorio Cajal de Circuitos Corticales, Centro de Tecnología Biomédica (CTB), Universidad Politécnica Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón, 28223, Madrid, Spain

    Alejandro Antón-Fernández, Javier DeFelipe & Alberto Muñoz

  3. Departamento de Anatomía, Histología y Neurociencia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid, Spain

    Pablo Rubio-Garrido

  4. Departamento de Biología Celular, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Alberto Muñoz

  5. CIBERNED, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas, Madrid, Spain

    Javier DeFelipe

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  1. Alejandro Antón-Fernández
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  2. Pablo Rubio-Garrido
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Correspondence to Alberto Muñoz.

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Antón-Fernández, A., Rubio-Garrido, P., DeFelipe, J. et al. Selective presence of a giant saccular organelle in the axon initial segment of a subpopulation of layer V pyramidal neurons. Brain Struct Funct 220, 869–884 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-013-0689-1

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