{"doi":"10.1101/2024.04.01.587595","title":"Cryo-electron tomographic investigation of native hippocampal glutamatergic synapses","abstract":"Summary Chemical synapses are the major sites of communication between neurons in the nervous system and mediate either excitatory or inhibitory signaling [1]. At excitatory synapses, glutamate is the primary neurotransmitter and upon release from presynaptic vesicles, is detected by postsynaptic glutamate receptors, which include ionotropic AMPA and NMDA receptors [2, 3]. Here we have developed methods to identify glutamatergic synapses in brain tissue slices, label AMPA receptors with small gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), and prepare lamella for cryo-electron tomography studies. The targeted imaging of glutamatergic synapses in the lamella is facilitated by fluorescent pre- and postsynaptic signatures, and the subsequent tomograms allow for identification of key features of chemical synapses, including synaptic vesicles, the synaptic cleft and AuNP-labeled AMPA receptors. These methods pave the way for imaging brain regions at high resolution, using unstained, unfixed samples preserved under near-native conditions.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2024,"id":486899,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9495,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":266823,"name":"Cathy J. Spangler","orcid":"0000-0003-2334-3957","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":709750,"name":"Johannes Elferich","orcid":"0000-0002-9911-706X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":670750,"name":"Momoko Shiozaki","orcid":"0000-0002-5640-8959","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1329322,"name":"Nikki Jean","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":988648,"name":"Xiaowei Zhao","orcid":"0000-0002-9868-5102","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573094,"name":"Maozhen Qin","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":572387,"name":"Haining Zhong","orcid":"0000-0002-7109-4724","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":259858,"name":"Zhiheng Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-7114-2570","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":279540,"name":"Eric Gouaux","orcid":"0000-0002-8549-2360","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249809,"name":"Aya Matsui","orcid":"0000-0003-4437-8278","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:08:01.404471Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}