香港科技大学张明杰综述了突触处相分离现象。相关论文于020年2月3日在线发表在国际学术期刊《自然—神经科学》上。

液-液相分离是指在另一种稀释的水溶液中形成浓缩分子组装体的现象。越来越多的研究表明，液-液相分离是细胞组织高度浓缩生物组装体（也称为生物浓缩物或无膜隔室）的一种手段，在不同亚细胞结构具有非常广泛的功能和调控特性。指示神经元突触前和突触后的突触传递分子机制也可能是通过这样的生物凝结物实现的。 研究人员回顾了这个领域的最新进展，这些进展揭示了相分离是如何建立密集的突触分子簇，并强调了突触形成和信号传导背景下这种凝聚簇的独特特征，还讨论了异常相分离介导的突触组装是如何导致精神疾病患者信号传导的异常；最后，为相分离在突触生物学的应用提出了一些机遇和挑战。

附：英文原文

Title: Phase separation at the synapse

Author: Xudong Chen, Xiandeng Wu, Haowei Wu, Mingjie Zhang

Issue&Volume: 2020-02-03

Abstract: Emerging evidence indicates that liquid–liquid phase separation, the formation of a condensed molecular assembly within another diluted aqueous solution, is a means for cells to organize highly condensed biological assemblies (also known as biological condensates or membraneless compartments) with very broad functions and regulatory properties in different subcellular regions. Molecular machineries dictating synaptic transmissions in both presynaptic boutons and postsynaptic densities of neuronal synapses may be such biological condensates. Here we review recent developments showing how phase separation can build dense synaptic molecular clusters, highlight unique features of such condensed clusters in the context of synaptic development and signaling, discuss how aberrant phase-separation-mediated synaptic assembly formation may contribute to dysfunctional signaling in psychiatric disorders, and present some challenges and opportunities of phase separation in synaptic biology.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-019-0579-9

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0579-9