Cm. Norris et al., ALTERATIONS IN THE BALANCE OF PROTEIN KINASE PHOSPHATASE ACTIVITIES PARALLEL REDUCED SYNAPTIC STRENGTH DURING AGING/, Journal of neurophysiology, 80(3), 1998, pp. 1567-1570
The current research examined the regulation of synaptic strength by p
rotein phosphorylation during aging. Bath application of the protein p
hosphatase 1 and 2A (PP1 and PP2A) inhibitor calyculin A (1 mu M) enha
nced CA3-CA1 synaptic strength in hippocampal slices from aged male (2
0-24 mo) but not from young adult male (4-6 mo) Fischer 344 rats. Simi
larly, injection of the PP1 and PP2A inhibitor microcystin-L,R (5 mu M
) into CA1 cells caused an increase in the intracellular synaptic resp
onse only in slices from aged rats. In contrast, bath application of t
he serine/threonine kinase inhibitor H-7 (10 mu M) induced a decrease
in synaptic strength only in slices from the young adult group. These
results demonstrate that phosphorylation-dependent regulation of intri
nsic synaptic efficacy changes during aging.