A. In the IPL, the amount of discrete Pclo puncta, representingindividual synapses, was apparently lowered inside the Pclo-mutant retina (Fig. 1B). This indicates that, while inside the brain on the Pclomutant mouse the majority of Pclo is lost from synapses [18], in the retina only a subset of synapses, mostly within the IPL, is impacted.PLOS One particular | plosone.orgPiccolino at Sensory Ribbon SynapsesFigure four. Localization of full-length Pclo at distinctive kinds of ribbon synapses. A: Wild-type (+/+) and Pclo-mutant (2/2) retinae stained together with the C-terminally binding Pclo 6 against full-length Pclo. B: Inner plexiform layer (IPL) of +/+ retina double labeled for full-length Pclo (Pclo 6; green) and CtBP2/RIBEYE (magenta). C : Pre-embedding β adrenergic receptor Antagonist site immunoelectron micrographs of a rod photoreceptor (C), cone photoreceptor (D), and rod bipolar cell (rbc) ribbon synapse (E) in the +/+ retina stained with Pclo six. Only amacrine cell synapses (E; asterisk) and by no means ribbon synapses (C ; arrowheads) were stained for full-length Pclo. F: Inner hair cells (ihc) double labeled for full-length Pclo (Pclo six; green) and CtBP2/RIBEYE (magenta). Nuclei (stained with DAPI, not shown) are circled with dotted lines. Arrowheads point to ribbon synapses, arrows demarcate conventional chemical synapses. ONL: outer nuclear layer; OPL: outer plexiform layer; INL: inner nuclear layer; GCL: ganglion cell layer. hc: horizontal cell; bc: bipolar cell; ac: amacrine cell. Scale bar inside a,B: 20 mm, C-E: 200 nm, F: 5 mm. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070373.gAs the majority of chemical synapses inside the OPL are photoreceptor ribbon synapses, Pclo appears to be present at these synapses within the Pclo-mutant retina. To confirm this, we double labeled photoreceptor ribbons with all the Pclo44a antibody (Fig. 1C; green) and an antibody against RIBEYE (Fig. 1C; magenta) demonstrating a comprehensive co-localization on the two proteins inside the OPL with the Pclo-mutant retina (Fig. 1C; merge). Inside the IPL of wt retina, co-localized Pclo/RIBEYE puncta representing bipolar cell ribbon synapses, and single Pclo puncta representing conventional amacrine cell synapses [16], could be observed (Fig. 1D). Inside the IPL of Pclo-mutant retina, single Pclo puncta have been missing, and only Pclo/RIBEYE puncta were detectable (Fig. 1D). Additional electron microscopical evaluation of photoreceptor and bipolar cellribbon synapses revealed no structural differences among wt and Pclo-mutant retinae (Fig. 1E ). These information strongly recommend that photoreceptor and bipolar cell ribbon synapses express a Pclo variant which can be not impacted by the exon-14 deletion and therefore differs in the Pclo protein described for the brain [23?5]. In agreement with all the previously published molecular weight for Pclo, the antibody Pclo 44a detected a single prominent band of .500 kDa on Western blots of wt mouse cortex synaptosomal (P2) fractions (Fig. 1H; lane 1). In P2 fractions of wt retina, Pclo 44a labeling revealed an more prominent band of ,350 kDa, which can be PRMT1 Inhibitor custom synthesis absent from cortex (Fig. 1H; lanes 1+3; see also [9]). In agreement using the reported loss of Pclo at traditional synapses [18], we could hardly detect the full-length Pclo band in PPLOS One | plosone.orgPiccolino at Sensory Ribbon SynapsesFigure 5. Piccolino and full-length Pclo expression in unique species. A: Sequence comparison with the very first 120 nucleotides of the Pclo intron 5/6 in between mouse, rat, cow, and human. Note the 100 conservation from the quit codon in all four species (TGA; boxed area). B: A.
