Date: Friday, 30 November 2018

Venue: Seminar Room 4, G/F
Laboratory Block, Faculty of Medicine Building
21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong

Time: 5:00 p.m.
Title: The Role of KIF5B in Learning and Memory
Speaker: Mr. FOK Hiu Ka Albert (PhD student)

Summary:
The kinesin I family is known to carry cargoes in both axons and dendrites. There are in a total of 3 members in this family of motor proteins- KIF5A, KIF5B and KIF5C. It is found that specific knockdown of KIF5B affects dendritic spine morphogenesis, excitatory synaptic transmission, and dendritic transport of the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP) in hippocampal neurons. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that KIF5B has specific role in the translocation of plasticity related proteins (PrPs) in dendrites. To test this hypothesis in vivo, we generated a KIF5B conditional knockout mouse model, in which CRE recombinase expression was driven by CaMKII promoter to remove kif5b exon 2 endogenously. Behavior tests and transcranial in vivo imaging were carried out. The results suggested that KIF5B function is important in regulating synaptic plasticity, synaptic function, and animal behavior.

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