Role of Neuroligin in Synapse Stability   Rand, James  Oklahoma
Medical Research Foundation   3 years  Basic & Clinical
Oklahoma City   United States   Oklahoma City State/Province
Full:  United States  One of the most important results emerging
from the intensive international effort to identify "autism-
related" genes has been the demonstration of an association with
autism (in some families) of mutations in genes encoding a
family of proteins called neuroligins. Neuroligins are synaptic
proteins present on post-synaptic cell membranes, and they bind
specifically to a set of presynaptic membrane proteins called
neurexins. Studies have shown that the binding of neuroligin to
neurexin can be sufficient to mediate the assembly of the
presynaptic components of a synapse. Mutations disrupting the
NLGN3 and NLGN4 genes seem to be associated with autism. The
association of autism with a disruption in components involved
in synapse structure provides a point of entry for investigating
the altered development and "m