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SUMMARY:How to make or break an axon: the roles and regulation of neuronal
  microtubules - Professor Andreas Prokop from Manchester Academic Health S
 cience Centre\, University of Manchester 
DTSTART:20181011T130000Z
DTEND:20181011T140000Z
UID:TALK109219@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Axons are the enormously long\, cable-like neuronal extensions
  that wire our nervous system. The formation and prolonged maintenance of 
 these delicate structures for an organism's lifetime\, requires parallel b
 undles of microtubules (MTs)\, which form the structural backbones and hig
 hways for life-sustaining transport in axons. In ageing we lose 50% of our
  axons\, and far more in neurodegeneration\; under these conditions\, axon
 al MTs often lose their bundled appearances forming areas of disorganisati
 on. To understand this deteriorating condition\, we use Drosophila and stu
 dy the various mechanisms that promote axonal MT bundle organisation durin
 g development and maintenance.\n\nFrom our work\, we developed the model o
 f "local axon homeostasis". It proposes that the axon is a high-force envi
 ronment favouring MT disorganisation by default and\, hence\, requiring re
 gulatory mechanisms that actively tame MTs into bundles (Voelzmann et al.\
 , 2016\, Brain Res Bulletin 126\, 226ff.). Three such ‘MT taming’ mech
 anisms will be presented: (A) Bundle formation and maintenance requires co
 ntinued MT polymerisation\, and we have achieved unprecedented understandi
 ng of the machinery driving this process. (B) A key mechanism downstream o
 f MT polymerisation is the guidance of polymerising MTs in parallel to the
  axonal surface into parallel bundles\, which depends on actin\, spectrapl
 akins and Eb1. (C) Finally\, Efa6 acts as MT-eliminating factor at the axo
 nal cortex serving as a quality control mechanism by taking out disorganis
 ed MTs.\n\nBy studying the different classes of MT regulators within the f
 unctional networks or machinery orchestrating axonal MT bundles\, we gain 
 important new understanding of fundamental axonal cell biology - required 
 to understand the processes of the formation\, plastic maintenance\, regen
 eration and age-or disease-related decay of axons.\n
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture Theatre\, Department of Genetics\, Downing Site
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