Neurexin-2: An inhibitory neurexin that restricts excitatory synapse formation in the hippocampus

Neurexins are widely thought to promote synapse formation and to organize synapse properties. Here we found that in contrast to neurexin-1 and neurexin-3, neurexin-2 unexpectedly restricts synapse formation. In the hip-pocampus, constitutive or neuron-specific deletions of neurexin-2 nearly doubled the strength of excitatory CA3???CA1 region synaptic connections and markedly increased their release probability. No effect on inhibitory synapses was detected. Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) superresolution microscopy re-vealed that the neuron-specific neurexin-2 deletion elevated the density of excitatory CA1 region synapses nearly twofold. Moreover, hippocampal neurexin-2 deletions also increased synaptic connectivity in the CA1 region when induced in mature mice and impaired the cognitive flexibility of spatial memory. Thus, neurex-in-2 controls the dynamics of hippocampal synaptic circuits by repressing synapse assembly throughout life, a restrictive function that markedly differs from that of neurexin-1 and neurexin-3 and of other synaptic adhe-sion molecules, suggesting that neurexins evolutionarily diverged into opposing pro-and antisynaptogenic organizers.

Automated summary

Contrary to neurexin-1 and neurexin-3, neurexin-2 restricts synapse formation in the hippocampus. Deleting neurexin-2 increases the strength and release probability of excitatory synapses, while having no effect on inhibitory synapses. Superresolution microscopy reveals that the deletion of neuron-specific neurexin-2 doubles the density of excitatory synapses in the CA1 region.