Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting| Aussois 2019

Biology and Physics Confront Cell-Cell Adhesion

Poster Abstracts

19-POS Board 19 MOLECULAR INTERACTIONS FOR ESTABLISHING NEURONAL CONNECTIVITY Elizabeth May 1 ; Rachelle Gaudet 1 ; 1 Harvard University, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Cambridge, MA, USA It is increasingly clear that many neurological disorders manifest physiologically as a miswiring of neural circuits in the brain – from an individual neuron’s perspective, a case of mistaken identity when it comes to finding and making appropriate connections. I investigate how neurons discriminate between correct and incorrect cell-cell contacts to determine their synaptic partners. Neuronal cell adhesion proteins called clustered protocadherins are important markers of cell identity and regulators of neuronal connectivity; juxtaposed cells in the brain compare their unique sets of cell-surface protocadherins to distinguish one another. In my poster, I present my exploration of one specific question to understand how clustered protocadherins signal to the neuron to either synapse with or avoid another cell. What do the protein-protein interactions look like when two cells compare their respective sets of clustered protocadherins? I use a combination of X-ray crystallography for structure determination and functional assays to test the interaction properties of clustered protocadherins. Deciphering the molecular interactions of clustered protocadherins is key to understanding how they function as cell identity markers to facilitate neural circuit wiring in the brain.

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