The physiological role of the amyloid-precursor protein (APP) is insufficiently understood. 29 Recent work has implicated APP in the regulation of synaptic plasticity. Substantial evidence 30 exists for a role of APP and its secreted ectodomain APPsα in Hebbian plasticity. Here, we 31 addressed the relevance of APP in homeostatic synaptic plasticity using organotypic tissue 32 cultures of APP -/mice. In the absence of APP, dentate granule cells failed to strengthen their 33 excitatory synapses homeostatically. Homeostatic plasticity is rescued by amyloid- (A and 34 not by APPsα, and it is neither observed in APP +/+ tissue treated with or -secretase 35 inhibitors nor in synaptopodin-deficient cultures lacking the Ca 2+ -dependent molecular 36 machinery of the spine apparatus. Together, these results suggest a role of APP processing via 37 the amyloidogenic pathway in homeostatic synaptic plasticity, representing a function of 38 relevance for brain physiology as well as for brain states associated with increased A levels.
39Hebbian plasticity, homeostatic plasticity 41 82 and report an essential role of Aβ in homeostatic plasticity of excitatory neurotransmission, 83 suggesting that this could be one of the major physiological functions of Aβ in the normal 84 brain.
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RESULTSHomeostatic synaptic plasticity is not observed in dentate granule cells of APP-deficient 86 entorhinal-hippocampal tissue cultures 87 Considering the role of the hippocampal formation and specifically the dentate gyrus in 88 memory formation (Aimone et al., 2011; Friedman and Goldman-Rakic, 1988), 3-week-old 89 (18 days in vitro; div) organotypic tissue cultures containing the entorhinal cortex and the 90 hippocampus were prepared from APP +/+ and APP -/mice-including age-and time-matched 91 APP +/+ littermates obtained from APP +/intercrossing ( Figure 1A, B). Tissue cultures were 92 treated with tetrodotoxin (TTX; 2 µM; 2 days) to induce homeostatic synaptic plasticity, and 93 α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor-mediated 94 miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) were recorded from individual dentate 95 granule cells (Figure 1C) to assess compensatory (i.e., homeostatic) synaptic changes. 96 In line with previous work [e.g., (Echegoyen et al., 2007; Kim and Tsien, 2008; Strehl et 97 al., 2018; Turrigiano et al., 1998; Vlachos et al., 2013)], a homeostatic increase in excitatory 98 synaptic strength (i.e., a robust increase in mEPSC amplitudes) was observed in the wild-type 99 tissue cultures (Figure 1D, E). In APP -/preparations, no significant changes in mEPSC 100properties were observed in dentate granule cells ( Figure 1F, G). Specifically, mean mEPSC 101 amplitude was 11.5 ± 0.3 pA in vehicle-only-treated and 11.8 ± 0.4 pA TTX-treated APP -/-102 dentate granule cells (p = 0.4; Mann-Whitney-test).
103In an attempt to rescue the ability of granule cells to express homeostatic synaptic 104 plasticity, APP -/tissue cultures were transfected with a bicistronic adeno-associated ...