Long-term potentiation in an innexin-based electrical synapse

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Welzel, Georg ; Schuster, Stefan:
Long-term potentiation in an innexin-based electrical synapse.
In: Scientific Reports. Vol. 8 (2018) . - 12579.
ISSN 2045-2322
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30966-w

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Electrical synapses are formed by two unrelated gap junction protein families, the primordial innexins (invertebrates) or the connexins (vertebrates). Although molecularly different, innexin- and connexin-based electrical synapses are strikingly similar in their membrane topology. However, it remains unclear if this similarity extends also to more sophisticated functions such as long-term potentiation which is only known in connexin-based synapses. Here we show that this capacity is not unique to connexin-based synapses. Using a method that allowed us to quantitatively measure gap-junction conductance we provide the first and unequivocal evidence of long-term potentiation in an innexin-based electrical synapse. Our findings suggest that long-term potentiation is a property that has likely existed already in ancestral gap junctions. They therefore could provide a highly potent system to dissect shared molecular mechanisms of electrical synapse plasticity.