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. 2014 Mar 19;34(12):4371–4381. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4943-13.2014

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Rapid synaptic growth occurs spontaneously and in response to elevated activity. A, Live confocal imaging of a dissected larval NMJ presynaptically expressing mRFP-Syx13. The arrow indicates the site of a new bouton spontaneously budding and stabilizing (arrow) over the course of a minute. A second bouton can also be seen to emerge from the same budding site, but later collapses. Scale bar, 5 μm. B, Ghost boutons can be detected in fixed tissue by staining for the presynaptic neuronal membrane (anti-HRP, red) and the postsynaptic scaffold protein DLG (green), appearing as presynaptic varicosities that lack DLG staining. Scale bar, 11 μm. Arrowheads indicate ghost boutons. C, Histogram of ghost bouton frequency observed at unstimulated NMJs. N = 68 NMJs, 12 animals. D, Putative ghost boutons identified by morphology in a fixed preparation can display faint DLG accumulation (arrowheads), suggesting some newly formed varicosities are likely to be undergoing synaptic maturation. Scale bar, 5 μm.