Neuronal excitability can be modulated through a dynamic process of endo- and exocytosis of excitatory ionotropic glutamate receptors. Described here is an accessible, high-content assay for quantifying surface and internal receptor population pools.
Postsynaptic trafficking of receptors to and from the cell surface is an important mechanism by which neurons modulate their responsiveness to different stimuli. The α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptors, which are responsible for fast excitatory synaptic transmission in neurons, are trafficked to and from the postsynaptic surface to dynamically alter neuronal excitability. AMPA receptor trafficking is essential for synaptic plasticity and can be disrupted in neurological disease. However, prevalent approaches for quantifying receptor trafficking ignore entire receptor pools, are overly time- and labor-intensive, or potentially disrupt normal trafficking mechanisms and therefore complicate the interpretation of resulting data. We present a high-content assay for the quantification of both surface and internal AMPA receptor populations in cultured primary hippocampal neurons using dual fluorescent immunolabeling and a near-infrared fluorescent 96-well microplate scanner. This approach facilitates the rapid screening of bulk internalized and surface receptor densities while minimizing sample material. However, our method has limitations in obtaining single-cell resolution or conducting live cell imaging. Finally, this protocol may be amenable to other receptors and different cell types, provided proper adjustments and optimization.
The magnitude and temporal dynamics of neuronal excitability is largely dependent on the availability and composition of surface receptor populations which transduce electrochemical signals. Whereas the synthesis of new receptors (or receptor subunits) is generally an energetically costly and relatively protracted process, a host of cellular machinery dedicated to the endo- and exocytosis of existing receptors provide a means for their fast insertion and removal to and from the membrane1. Therefore, in addition to the transcriptional and translational regulation of receptors, posttranslational receptor trafficking is an important modulator of neuronal excitability.
Synaptic plasticity, or the changing strength of connections between neurons with experience, is thought to form the basis of learning and memory2,3. The strengthening and weakening of synapses over time, termed long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD), respectively, can be modulated through the trafficking of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptors4,5. AMPA receptors are heterotetramers composed of four subunits (GluA1-4), and mediate the majority of fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the brain6. Thus, neuron excitability is in large part a function of the quantity of AMPA receptors at the postsynaptic surface available to be activated by glutamate. LTD is commonly associated with an increase in AMPA receptor endocytosis, whereas LTP is predominantly associated with an increase in AMPA receptor exocytosis. Postsynaptic surface expression of AMPA receptors requires endosomal delivery to exocytotic proteins, where fusion with the plasma membrane then occurs in a calcium-dependent manner7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14. There also exist a host of mechanisms that regulate activity-dependent AMPA receptor endocytosis. One example of this is via the immediate early gene Arc/Arg3.1 (Arc). Among other functions15, Arc is known to mediate metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR)-dependent LTD by promoting AMPA receptor endocytosis through its binding partners, which include the endocytic proteins AP-2, endophilin-3, and dynamin-216,17,18,19, at clathrin-coated pits20,21. Internalized AMPA receptors can either be recycled back to the plasma membrane or earmarked for degradation22,23.
Importantly, the subunit composition of AMPA receptors contributes to their trafficking dynamics24. Of major relevance is the intracellular C-terminal domain of the subunits, where the majority of posttranslational modifications and trafficking-related protein interactions occur. GluA1 and GluA4 subunit-containing AMPA receptors are particularly apt to being trafficked to the cell surface during LTP, in part due to the presence of their PDZ ligands, ~90 amino acid sequences that promote membrane anchoring via interactions with various PDZ domain-containing proteins25,26. On the other hand, AMPA receptors containing GluA2 and lacking GluA1 or GluA4 tend to be trafficked constitutively but accumulate intracellularly with synaptic activity27. GluA2 subunits undergo RNA editing which, in addition to promoting retention in the endoplasmic reticulum28, renders the channel pore impermeable to calcium29, further implicating subunit-specific trafficking as a key mediator of neuronal homeostasis and plasticity. Interestingly, disruption of ubiquitin-dependent Arc degradation has been shown to increase GluA1 endocytosis and increase the surface expression of GluA2 subunit-containing AMPA receptors after induction of mGluR-LTD with the selective group I mGluR agonist (S)-3,5-Dihydroxyphenylglycine (DHPG), indicating that much remains to be learned regarding the mechanisms and role of subunit-specific AMPA receptor trafficking30.
Methods for observing changes in surface expression of receptors are often cumbersome, time consuming, or introduce unnecessary confounds. Biotin-based assays are a pervasive and commercially available approach. Affinity purification of biotinylated surface receptors represents one such example, however the necessity of performing electrophoresis requires a large amount of sample material and can render the screening of multiple treatments a prohibitively lengthy process31. Extensions of this assay, where multiple time points of labeling and immunoprecipitations are performed to quantify the gradual degradation of an initial signal, similarly neglect the addition of new — or recycled — receptors to the cell surface and only exacerbate the time and material requirements.
Other approaches make use of chimeric constructs or the addition of fluorescent tags to observe receptor trafficking32, sometimes using live cell imaging33,34. While potentially powerful, these designs can affect the normal trafficking patterns of receptors due to the mutations or dramatic changes in molecular weight introduced in these proteins. The use of dyes that label subcellular compartments by targeting low pH34,35 are non-specific and make distinguishing between different intracellular compartments important for receptor trafficking (e.g. lysosomes and proteasomes) difficult. Finally, the use of confocal microscopy to visualize the colocalization of receptors with markers associated with trafficking and degradation, such as endosomal proteins or clathrin, while potentially providing useful insight into specific localization with subcellular resolution, are time, labor-intensive, and costly due to the necessity of individually analyzing each cell and the requirement of confocal or super-resolution microscopy.
Here, we demonstrate a high-content receptor trafficking assay that is compatible with primary neuronal culture preparations30. This method separately labels the surface and intracellular receptor pools of fixed neurons, enabling the presentation of data as a ratio of normalized surface or internalized receptor density to the overall density for that receptor. The high-content nature of this method is ideal for screening multiple treatments and/or genotypes in a short time frame, and requires only standard cell culturing and antibody incubation expertise.
Briefly, primary neurons are grown in standard 96-well microplates and then treated as dictated by experimental design, incubated with primary antibodies, washed, and fixed. Cells are then incubated with a secondary antibody to label surface receptors, followed by another fixation step. Permeabilization then occurs and a second secondary antibody is used to label internal receptor pools. Finally, cells are imaged using an infrared fluorescent microplate scanner to quantify the integrated density of each receptor population. Figure 1 summarizes our high-content assay in comparison to a traditional biotinylation assay.
While the protocol offered here is optimized and specific for AMPA receptor trafficking in primary hippocampal neuron cultures, this procedure could, in theory, be extended and adapted for different receptors in a variety of cell types.
All methods described here have been approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Georgia State University.
1. Preparation of Primary Hippocampal Neurons (in Laminar Flow Hood)
2. Measuring AMPA Receptor Trafficking in Response to DHPG (in Laminar Flow Hood)
3. Immunolabelling (in Laminar Flow Hood)
4. Labelling Surface Receptors
5. Labelling the Internalized Receptor Population
6. Imaging and Analysis
Arc/Arg3.1 accelerates AMPA receptor endocytosis through interaction with AP-2, endophilin-3 and dynamin-216,18 following mGluR activation37. In the Arc knock-in mouse (ArcKR), lysines 268 and 269 in the Arc protein are mutated to arginine, which interferes with Arc ubiquitination. This impairs proteasome-dependent turnover of Arc and prolongs its half-life in neurons21,30. In this experiment, the persistence of Arc in regulating AMPA receptor trafficking was examined using the high-content AMPA receptor trafficking assay. Neurons were treated with the Na+ channel blocker TTX, which inhibits action potentials and reduces Arc levels38, followed by DHPG, which induces Arc translation and ubiquitination37,39. Both surface and internalized pools of GluA1- (Figure 2A) and GluA2-containing (Figure 3A) AMPA receptor subunits were measured at 5 and 15 min after DHPG washout. This particular experiment used three technical replicates from 3 independent experiments. ArcKR neurons showed increased GluA1 endocytosis when treated with DHPG compared to WT neurons, an effect that was not seen when neurons were treated with TTX only (Figure 2B). Surface expression of GluA2 subunits was significantly increased at short time points compared to WT neurons (Figure 3B), indicating a potential subunit replacement30. Some wells were treated with secondary antibodies only to control for background fluorescence caused by nonspecific binding.
Figure 1: Comparison of the AMPA receptor high-content trafficking assay to the receptor biotinylation assay. The high-content trafficking assay consumes less time and resources compared to the standard biotinylation assay. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 2: Surface and internal populations of GluA1 AMPA receptor subunits in WT and ArcKR hippocampal neurons. (A) Surface (sGluA1) and internalized (iGluA1) GluA1-containing AMPA receptor subunits in WT and ArcKR hippocampal neurons at 5 and 15 min after DHPG washout. Compared to WT, ArcKR neurons have a further decrease in the sGluA1-containing AMPA receptor pool 5 and 15 min after DHPG washout. (B) Graph represents surface fluorescence normalized to the total fluorescence intensity. Statistical comparisons were carried out using a one-way ANOVA, paired and unpaired Student's t tests. *p ≤ 0.05; n = 3 technical replicates from 3 independent experiments. Values represent mean ± SEM. This figure has been modified from Wall, M. J. et al. 201830. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
Figure 3: Surface and internal populations of GluA2 AMPA receptor subunits in WT and ArcKR hippocampal neurons. (A) The same experimental condition as Figure 2. Compared to WT, ArcKR neurons have an increase in the sGluA2-containing AMPA receptor pool 5 min after DHPG washout. (B) Graph represents surface fluorescence normalized to the total fluorescence intensity. Statistical comparisons were carried out using one-way ANOVA, paired and unpaired Student's t tests. *p ≤ 0.05; n = 3 technical replicates from 3 independent experiments. Values represent mean ± SEM. This figure has been modified from Wall, M. J. et al. 201830. Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.
AMPA receptors are an ionotropic glutamate receptor subtype that is integral for neuronal functions which include synapse formation, synapse stability, and synaptic plasticity. AMPA receptor disruption is linked to multiple neurological disorders24 and are considered attractive drug targets40. For example, studies have shown that one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is synapse loss and reduced synaptic AMPA receptor levels41,42. Intriguingly, addition of Amyloid-ß oligomers impairs surface GluA1-containing AMPA receptor expression at synapses43. Further, status epilepticus down-regulates GluA2 mRNA and protein in hippocampal neurons preceding their death44. In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), TAR DNA-binding protein (TDP-43) pathology, an ALS-specific molecular abnormality, has been linked to inefficient GluA2 Q/R site-RNA editing45.
The high-content AMPA receptor trafficking assay provides an effective means for measuring bulk changes in receptor trafficking profiles within a neuronal network in response to various factors, consuming much less time and materials than alternative methods. A single 96-well microplate provides numerous wells to run multiple technical replicates and controls for different experimental conditions in the same plate. The low plating density of 2 x 104 cells/well relative to the 5 x 105 cells/well density significantly reduces the number of animals and materials required for each experiment (Figure 1). The infrared scanner can image up to six 96-well microplates at a time. The assay can also be modified to a 384-well microplate46, which becomes specifically valuable if the assay is run on precious samples that are difficult to obtain or are expensive to culture (e.g. human samples and induced pluripotent stem cells). The entire assay can be completed and analyzed on the same day, which saves valuable time (Figure 1).
For successful and efficient completion of the assay, some points need to be considered. First, it is important to prepare the DHPG solution on the same day of neuron treatment. Do not reuse or freeze DHPG stocks. The 4% paraformaldehyde/4% sucrose in PBS solution should also be made fresh on the same day of the experiment. Second, control wells treated with TTX only or vehicle are required to ensure that the effects observed are specific to treatment. It is also critical to include wells treated with only the secondary antibodies to control for background fluorescence produced by non-specific binding. Note that the second fixation step (following washout of secondary antibodies) is key to reducing secondary antibody background effects and achieving effective labelling of receptor subunits.
Compromises and limitations, as with any method, exist. This assay does not provide single-cell (or subcellular) resolution and does not allow for real-time tracking of receptor trafficking like other methods32,33,35. Additionally, proper care must be taken during the permeabilization step of neurons, as this method will be sensitive to the leaking of intracellular components in the case of over-permeabilization.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We thank Zachary Allen for technical assistance. This work was supported by the Whitehall Foundation (Grant 2017-05-35) and Cleon C. Arrington Research Initiation Grant Program (RIG-93) to A.M.M. M.A.G. and D.W.Y. were both supported by a Georgia State University Neurogenomics 2CI Fellowship.
Mouse monoclonal (RH95) anti-GluA1 N-terminal | EMD Millipore | Cat#MAB2263MI, RRID: AB_11212678, LOT#2869732 | |
Mouse monoclonal (6C4) anti-GluA2 | ThermoFisher Scientific | Cat#32-0300, RRID: AB_2533058, LOT#TE268315 | |
IRDye 680RD Goat anti-Mouse IgG (H+L) | Li-COR Biosciences | Cat# 926-68070, RRID: AB_10956588, LOT#C60107-03 | |
IRDye 800CW Donkey anti-Mouse IgG (H+L) | Li-COR Biosciences | Cat# 926-32212, RRID: AB_621847, LOT#C60524-15 | |
(RS)-3,5-DHPG | Tocris Bio-Techne | Cat#0342 | |
Tetrodotoxin Citrate (TTX) | Tocris Bio-Techne | Cat#1069 | |
Poly-D-Lysine Hydrobromide (PDL) | Sigma-Aldrich | Cat#P7280-5X5MG | |
Saponin | ACROS Organics | Cat# 419231000 | |
B-27 Supplement (50 X), Serum Free | Gibco | Cat#17504044 | |
Glutamax Supplement | Gibco | Cat#35050061 | |
5-Fluoro-2′-deoxyuridine (FUDR) | Sigma-Aldrich | Cat#F0503 | |
Gentamycin (10 mg/ml) | Gibco | Cat#15710064 | |
Paraformaldehyde, EM Grade, Purified | Electron Microscopy Sciences | Cat#19210 | |
Sucrose (EP/BP/NF) | FisherScientific | Cat#S2500GM | |
Odyssey Blocking Buffer (TBS) | Li-COR | Cat#927-50003 | Refered to as "Blocking Buffer" in the protocol |
Cell Culture Grade Water | HyClone | Cat#SH30529.02 | |
DPBS, no calcium, no magnesium | Gibco | Cat#14190250 | |
Neurobasal Medium, minus phenol red | Gibco | Cat#12348017 | Referred to as "neuronal Media" in the protocol |
28 mm Diameter Syringe Filters, 0.2 µm Pore SFCA Membrane, Sterile | Corning | Cat#431219 | |
96-well Black/Clear and White/Clear Bottom Polystyrene Microplates | Corning | Cat#3603 | |
ImageJ | NIH | https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/ ; RRID: SCR_003070 | |
FIJI (Fiji is Just ImageJ) | NIH | http://fiji.sc/ ; RRID: SCR_002285 | |
Odyssey CLx imaging system | Li-COR Biosciences |