Functional Complexity of the Axonal Growth Cone: A Proteomic Analysis

ADRIANA ESTRADA-BERNAL; STACI D. SANFORD; LUCAS J. SOSA; GLENN C. SIMON; KIRK C. HANSEN; KARL H. PFENNINGER

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Lugar: San Francisco; Año: 2012 vol. 7 p. 1 - 1

he growth cone, the tip of the emerging neurite, plays a crucial role in establishing the wiring of the developing nervous system. We performed an extensive proteomic analysis of axonal growth cones isolated from the brains of fetal Sprague- Dawley rats. Approximately 2000 proteins were identified at 99% confidence level. Using informatics, including functional annotation cluster and KEGG pathway analysis, we found great diversity of proteins involved in axonal pathfinding, cytoskeletal remodeling, vesicular traffic and carbohydrate metabolism, as expected. We also found a large and complex array of proteins involved in translation, protein folding, posttranslational processing, and proteasome/ubiquitination dependent degradation. Immunofluorescence studies performed on hippocampal neurons in culture confirmed the presence in the axonal growth cone of proteins representative of these processes. These analyses also provide evidence for rough endoplasmic reticulum and reveal a reticular