GABA, postsynaptic. The molecular structure of the postsynapse has long been a mystery. Why do receptors cluster at a particular site and don’t simply float around all over the plasma membrane? The identification of postsynaptic scaffolding proteins answered some of these questions. However, it also became clear that inhibitory synapses are completely different from excitatory synapses. Now, a recent paper in Human Molecular Genetics finds that exonic deletions in gephyrin, the main structural protein of the inhibitory synapse, predispose to various neurodevelopmental disorders. Continue reading
Category Archives: autism
AUTS2, regulatory elements and human evolution
Recurrent themes. The era of large-scale genomics in neurodevelopmental disorders has welcomed the discovery of several genes, which predispose to a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders. While a connection to neuronal function is obvious for a few of them, the function of other genes remains cryptic. Now, a recent paper in PLOS Genetics investigates AUTS2, a gene that is both a candidate gene for autism and a gene that has changed dramatically in recent human evolution. Continue reading
