AMPA receptor/TARP stoichiometry visualized by single-molecule subunit counting

11.03.2013

Hastie P, Ulbrich MH, Wang HL, Arant RJ, Lau AG, Zhang Z, Isacoff EY, Chen L.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Mar 26;110(13):5163-8

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.            online article

Members of the transmembrane AMPA receptor-regulatory protein (TARP) family modulate AMPA receptor (AMPA-R) trafficking and function. We use a single-molecule technique in live cells that selectively images proteins in the plasma membrane to directly count the number of TARPs associated with each AMPA-R complex. We determined the number of TARP molecules associated with each AMPA-R by counting bleaching steps for three different TARP family members: ?-2, ?-3, and ?-4.