by Keyword: Dendritic spine
Colom-Cadena, M, Davies, C, Sirisi, S, Lee, JE, Simzer, EM, Tzioras, M, Querol-Vilaseca, M, Sánchez-Aced, E, Chang, YY, Holt, K, McGeachan, RI, Rose, J, Tulloch, J, Wilkins, L, Smith, C, Andrian, T, Belbin, O, Pujals, S, Horrocks, MH, Lleó, A, Spires-Jones, TL, (2023). Synaptic oligomeric tau in Alzheimer's disease - A potential culprit in the spread of tau pathology through the brain Neuron 111, 2170-+ 
In Alzheimer's disease, fibrillar tau pathology accumulates and spreads through the brain and synapses are lost. Evidence from mouse models indicates that tau spreads trans-synaptically from pre- to postsynapses and that oligomeric tau is synaptotoxic, but data on synaptic tau in human brain are scarce. Here we used sub-diffraction-limit microscopy to study synaptic tau accumulation in postmortem temporal and occipital cortices of human Alzheimer's and control donors. Oligomeric tau is present in pre- and postsynaptic terminals, even in areas without abundant fibrillar tau deposition. Furthermore, there is a higher proportion of oligomeric tau compared with phosphorylated or misfolded tau found at synaptic terminals. These data suggest that accumulation of oligomeric tau in synapses is an early event in pathogenesis and that tau pathology may progress through the brain via trans-synaptic spread in human disease. Thus, specifically reducing oligomeric tau at synapses may be a promising therapeutic strategy for Alzheimer's disease.Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
JTD Keywords: accumulation, alpha-synuclein, array tomography, cognitive impairment, dendritic spines, mouse model, neurodegeneration, neurons, synapses, Alzheimer, Amyloid-beta, Synapse, Tau
Bosch, M., Castro, J., Sur, M., Hayashi, Y., (2017). Photomarking relocalization technique for correlated two-photon and electron microcopy imaging of single stimulated synapses 
Synapse Development - Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology) (ed. Poulopoulos , A.), Humana Press (New York, USA) 1538, 185-214
Synapses learn and remember by persistent modifications of their internal structures and composition but, due to their small size, it is difficult to observe these changes at the ultrastructural level in real time. Two-photon fluorescence microscopy (2PM) allows time-course live imaging of individual synapses but lacks ultrastructural resolution. Electron microscopy (EM) allows the ultrastructural imaging of subcellular components but cannot detect fluorescence and lacks temporal resolution. Here, we describe a combination of procedures designed to achieve the correlated imaging of the same individual synapse under both 2PM and EM. This technique permits the selective stimulation and live imaging of a single dendritic spine and the subsequent localization of the same spine in EM ultrathin serial sections. Landmarks created through a photomarking method based on the 2-photon-induced precipitation of an electrodense compound are used to unequivocally localize the stimulated synapse. This technique was developed to image, for the first time, the ultrastructure of the postsynaptic density in which long-term potentiation was selectively induced just seconds or minutes before, but it can be applied for the study of any biological process that requires the precise relocalization of micron-wide structures for their correlated imaging with 2PM and EM.
JTD Keywords: Correlated imaging, DAB, Dendritic spine, Photobranding, Photoetching, Photomarking, Postsynaptic density, Serial-section transmission electron microscopy, Synapse, Time-lapse live two-photon fluorescence microscopy
