Remembering Is Important, but Forgetting Is Important, Too

Just as a packaging breakdown can hamstring delivery of cables, switches and connectors to a house under construction, removing a protein from neurons can block the "shipment" of proteins to developing axons. Axons are the telephone wires of the nervous system. They convey information to dendrites on other nerve cells, in a processing network of phenomenal complexity that is the backbone of the entire nervous system. In a paper published in Nature Communications, Edwin Chapman of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Wisconsin¬-Madison reports that halting production of synaptotagmin 17 (syt-17) blocks growth of axons. Equally significant, when cells made more syt-17, axon growth accelerated. A wide range of neurological conditions could benefit from the growth of axons, including spinal cord injuries and some neurodegenerative diseases. The protein in question, syt-17, is made by the 17th (and last) synaptotagmin gene to be identified. "Lots of work has been done on this family since it was discovered in 1981," Chapman says. https://www.technologynetworks.com/proteomics/news/remembering-is-important-but-forgetting-is-important-too-323048?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=75912925&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9pV8aTdKmxRAPTbpKJewA_bbc9Fav8TyWoQgZZgidqc3ICc1BrJtCaZYc7pX96GL5F1z_9aLDAwQcPKq7XJWx7fPrKQQ&_hsmi=75912925