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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Apr 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Neurosci. 2021 Jan 21;44(4):248–259. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2020.12.003

Figure 3. Putative role of Arc-dependent intercellular RNA trafficking.

Figure 3.

Arc mRNA traffics to active dendrites where translation and capsid assembly takes place. Extracellular vesicles containing Arc are released and deliver Arc mRNA and/or non-coding RNA cargo to neighboring cells. In recipient cells, translation of transferred Arc mRNA in dendrites could lead to the endocytosis of AMPA-type glutamate receptors at synapses and regulate circuit-level form of heterosynaptic plasticity. Alternatively, delivery of non-coding RNAs such as miRNAs or tRNAs/rRNAs could regulate protein expression in recipient cells. (Neuron images obtained from cultured rat hippocampal neurons transfected with a cell filler, mCherry, courtesy of Andrew Taibi).