Presynaptic mitochondria volume and abundance increase during development.

What is it about?

Communication between brain cells is based on specialized structures between nerve cells, called synapses. Nerve cell activity has high energetic demands. Tiny powerhouses within the cell, called mitochondria, provide this energy and those are also located in synapses. One of the most energy-demanding synapses in the brain is the giant calyx of Held, which is crucial for hearing. It has previously been suggested, that mitochondria numbers increase as the synapse grows and develops, however, studying these tiny structures during development has been challenging. Here, we studied the development of mitochondria number and localization in detail by combining multiple complementary microscope techniques and found that mitochondria numbers increase during development to meet the energetic demand of the mature synapse. Additionally, we optimized protocols to label and study synaptic components in detail and believe that these methods will have broad applications for quantitative analysis of subsynaptic structures.

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