Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States
Emanuela Santini
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
Robert Sears
Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, United States; Emotional Brain Institute, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatry Research, Orangeburg, United States; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States
Zachary Deane
Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States
Rahul N Kanadia
Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, United States
Joseph E LeDoux
Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, United States; Emotional Brain Institute, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatry Research, Orangeburg, United States
Tenzin Lhakhang
Applied Bioinformatics Laboratories, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States
Aristotelis Tsirigos
Applied Bioinformatics Laboratories, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States; Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States
Adriana Heguy
Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States; Genome Technology Center, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States
Local translation can support memory consolidation by supplying new proteins to synapses undergoing plasticity. Translation in adult forebrain dendrites is an established mechanism of synaptic plasticity and is regulated by learning, yet there is no evidence for learning-regulated protein synthesis in adult forebrain axons, which have traditionally been believed to be incapable of translation. Here, we show that axons in the adult rat amygdala contain translation machinery, and use translating ribosome affinity purification (TRAP) with RNASeq to identify mRNAs in cortical axons projecting to the amygdala, over 1200 of which were regulated during consolidation of associative memory. Mitochondrial and translation-related genes were upregulated, whereas synaptic, cytoskeletal, and myelin-related genes were downregulated; the opposite effects were observed in the cortex. Our results demonstrate that axonal translation occurs in the adult forebrain and is altered after learning, supporting the likelihood that local translation is more a rule than an exception in neuronal processes.
