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. 2014 Sep 18;8:106. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2014.00106

FIGURE 4.

FIGURE 4

The potassium ion channel SK3 is part of the C-bouton signaling ensemble in a subset of α-motoneurons. Images are confocal stacks of 26 × 1 μm Z-stacks with nissl stain (blue) to label rat lumbar neuronal somata. Scale bar is 20 μm. (A) VAChT-IR (white) C-boutons form synapses onto all rat lumbar α-MNs on the soma and proximal dendrites. (B) SK3-IR (red) located within surface membrane of a subset of α-MNs in large distinct clusters. In rodents, SK3 channels, having slower intrinsic activation and deactivation kinetics than SK2 channels (Xia et al., 1998), are preferentially expressed in small, presumably S-type, α-MNs with long duration and large amplitude mAHP currents (Deardorff et al., 2013). (C) Large and small Kv2.1-IR (green) clusters are located within the surface membrane of all α-MNs. (D,E) The large SK3-IR and Kv2.1-IR clusters colocalize within the surface membrane of α-MNs and are apposed to VAChT-IR C-boutons.