Projects / Programmes
Elementary exocytotic events in pituitary cells
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 3.03.00 |
Medical sciences |
Neurobiology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| B640 |
Biomedical sciences |
Neurology, neuropsychology, neurophysiology |
pituitary cells, regulated exocytosis, fusion pore, fluorimetry, FM1-43, confocal microscopy, membrane capacitance, patch-clamp
Researchers (2)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
04411 |
PhD Tomaž Kiauta |
Neurobiology |
Researcher |
2002 - 2004 |
73 |
| 2. |
15467 |
PhD Matjaž Stenovec |
Medical sciences |
Head |
2002 - 2004 |
202 |
Organisations (1)
| no. |
Code |
Research organisation |
City |
Registration number |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
1683 |
Celica BIOMEDICAL |
Ljubljana |
1506854 |
1,783 |
Abstract
Exocytosis enables release of the vesicles content into the extracellular space. The membrane of the single vesicle fuses with the plasma membrane and forms the fusion pore through which the vesicle content is released. The model systems for studies of exocytosis are anterior pituitary cells that are specialized for regulated exocytosis. The hormones of anterior pituitary control growth, development, reproduction and the organism's response to stress. Secretion of the pituitary hormones is controlled by circulating hypothalamic factors that interact with the specific surface membrane receptors and subsequently activate intracellular signaling mechanisms. Thus the key of understanding neuroendocrine integration is to understand the mechanisms that control exocytosis. Although exocytosis is a process ubiquitous to all eukaryotic cells, we know surprisingly little of how it is controlled at the elementary level. The physiological relationship between fusion pore expansion and solubilisation of the vesicle content is not clear. To verify the hypothesis of physiological regulation of secretion at post-fusion site(s), one needs to be able to measure unitary exocytic events. We intend to investigate the time course of single fusion events and dynamics of fusion pore expansion by combining high - resolution membrane capacitance measurements with fluorimetric measurements. The dynamics of single fusion events will be measured in real time as the increase of FM1-43 fluorescence. The release of vesicle content will be measured as fluorescence decrease of secretory peptide ANF (atrial natriuretic factor) tagged with the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). Parallel to the fluorimetric measurements, the high - resolution membrane capacitance measurements in cell - attached mode and capacitance measurements in whole - cell mode will be performed.
