AUTHOR=Bykhovskaia Maria 

TITLE=Probabilities of evoked and spontaneous synaptic transmission at individual active zones: Lessons from Drosophila

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2022.1110538

DOI=10.3389/fnmol.2022.1110538

ISSN=1662-5099

ABSTRACT=<p>Nerve terminals release neuronal transmitters at morphological specializations known as active zones (AZs). Synaptic vesicle fusion at individual AZs is probabilistic, and this property is fundamental for the neuronal information transfer. Until recently, a lack of appropriate tools limited the studies of stochastic properties of neuronal secretion at individual AZs. However, <italic>Drosophila</italic> transgenic lines that express postsynaptically tethered Ca<sup>2+</sup> sensor GCaMP enabled the visualization of single exocytic event at individual AZs. The present mini-review discusses how this powerful approach enables the investigation of the evoked and spontaneous transmission at single AZs and promotes the understanding of the properties of both release components.</p>