Proteins are the essential substrate of learning and memory. However, while memories can last a life-time, proteins are relatively short-lived molecules that need to be replenished every couple of days. This poses a huge logistic challenge on over 85 billion neurons in the brain: billions of proteins need to be continuously produced, shipped, addressed and installed at the right location in the cell. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research have now addressed a bottleneck in the protein trafficking system, dendritic branch points. They find that surface diffusion of proteins is more effective at providing proteins to distal dendritic sites than cytoplasmic diffusion.
Click here for original story, Membrane proteins are more efficient at reaching distal dendrites than soluble proteins
Source: Phys.org