Dissecting the roles of Ube3a in synaptic plasticity by analyzing synaptic function at the single cell level and utilizing ‘Network Analysis Proteomics’ strategy

$56,000

This grant-funded research was to a premier AS researcher who was instrumental in developing a mouse model for AS and who demonstrated that an important enzyme associated with the synapse, CAMKII, was inhibited or partially inactivated in Angelman mice. Subsequent experiments by others were able to release this CAMKII inhibition and provided an impressive correction of the features of AS thereby opening the door to the possibility of new therapeutic strategies to treat some of the symptoms of AS. Additional work from this grant showed that the physical structure of the synapse was generally intact and also began to identify additional proteins that interact with UBE3A.