NGF Signals Ride a Trolley to Nucleus

摘要

Neurons have a special communication problem: The length of a nerve cell, from the tip of its axon to its main cell body, can be many centimeters or even a meter--"an amazing distance" for a molecular signal to travel, says Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David Ginty. Yet that's the distance that nerve growth factor (NGF), a nurturing elixir that bathes the axon tips of some neurons, must send its signal to regulate genes in the nucleus. New work by Ginty and his colleagues suggests that NGF delivers its long-range message by boarding a subcellular trolley that shuttles it to the cell body.