Numerical simulations of glutamate diffusion in a synaptic cleft. Dependence on the geometry and its possible interactions

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Numerical simulations of glutamate diffusion in a synaptic cleft. Dependence on the geometry and its possible interactions Wojciech Goch1* and Wojciech Bal1 1 Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Poland The mechanism of the chemical synapse has been intensively investigated, but the precise time-course of a neurotransmitter in the synaptic cleft is still to be determined. Many approaches to the study of the neurotransmitter flow can be found in the literature, but in most of them the assumption on the simplified geometry has been made. Our first goal was to investigate the possible influence of the cleft geometry on the diffusion rate of the neurotransmitter and the saturation of the receptors. The second issue we are interested in is a possible participation of zinc in Aβ peptide aggregation - one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer Disease. As the dysfunction of zinc homeostasis is considered, we aim to investigate the interactions of [(Zn)]^(2+) ions with glutamate in the confined volume of the synapse. In order to achieve these goals we developed dedicated software within the Wolfram Mathematica environment. Our simulations illustrate the Brownian motion of glutamate molecules and zinc ions in a small volume, constrained by 2D surfaces (modeling the pre- and postsynaptic membrane) with an arbitrary chosen shape. The interactions between glutamate and [(Zn)]^(2+) and receptors/transporters are defined by collision induced reactions. The electrostatic interactions between molecules and the membrane surface are also considered. The proposed model shows a dependence between the geometry of the synaptic cleft and the time-course of glutamate, thus providing an insight into the role of zinc in Alzheimer Disease. Keywords: computational neuroscience, simulation, Neuroscience, neuroinformatics, Alzheimer Disease Conference: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics, Munich, Germany, 10 Sep - 12 Sep, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Neuroinformatics Citation: Goch W and Bal W (2014). Numerical simulations of glutamate diffusion in a synaptic cleft. Dependence on the geometry and its possible interactions. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: 5th INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. doi: 10.3389/conf.fninf.2014.08.00121 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Mar 2013; Published Online: 27 Feb 2014. * Correspondence: Dr. Wojciech Goch, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS, Warsaw, Poland, Wojciech_Goch@wp.pl Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Wojciech Goch Wojciech Bal Google Wojciech Goch Wojciech Bal Google Scholar Wojciech Goch Wojciech Bal PubMed Wojciech Goch Wojciech Bal Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.