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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jan 15.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2013 Jan;14(1):38–48. doi: 10.1038/nrn3406

Figure 1. Functional properties of α-synuclein.

Figure 1

a, b | Wide field and magnified images of cultured cortical neurons from a postnatal day 1 wild-type mouse showing a neuronal dendrite (as revealed by MAP2 immunostaining; red) opposed to α-synuclein (α-syn)-positive presynaptic densities (green), indicating that α-syn is located in the presynaptic terminals. c | The schematic depicts the various roles of α-syn at the pre-synaptic terminal in the regulation of vesicle trafficking and vesicle refilling (α-syn; blue), as well as the interaction with membrane-associated t-SNARE or the vesicle-associated v-SNARE proteins and neurotransmitter release. Accumulation of α-syn induces an impairment of neurotransmitter release, vesicle recycling and trafficking between synaptic buttons and influence t-SNARE complex assembly stability (α-syn; red), whereas its depletion induces an impairment of vesicle trafficking between the reserve pool and the ready releasable pool and a deficiency in vesicle refilling and neurotransmitter uptake.