MCDB 423 Lecture Notes - Lecture 34: Rna Interference, Light-Independent Reactions, Membrane Protein
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Once synapses are formed, there has to be further maturation. Withi(cid:374) ou(cid:396) (cid:374)e(cid:396)(cid:448)ous s(cid:455)ste(cid:373), the(cid:396)e"s o(cid:448)e(cid:396)g(cid:396)o(cid:449)th of s(cid:455)(cid:374)apses. Early in development, muscle fibers are innervated by more than 1 motor neuron. Combination of a single motor neuron innervating all of its muscle fibers is called the motor unit. So during development, the motor unit decreases in size. In the nmj, you can make a cut and observe synaptic elimination occuring in real time. In this case, these are yfp labeled motor neurons and cfp labeled motor neurons. This particular nmj is being innervated by two different motor neurons. You can keep looking back at this synapse as time progresses. There is no overlap with the two synaptic terminals. They partition the nmj in a clean fashion. A day later, the cfp appears to have retracted a bit and the yfp has taken its place. This process continues and each day the cfp continues to regress and the yfp expands.