鳥不語花不香男無情女無義

On the cover: Presynaptic plasticity is a fundamental, yet poorly understood, neural phenomenon that is thought to be the basis of learning and memory. In this issue, Yao et al. (pp. 943–957) identify a novel ubiquitin ligase named SCRAPPER, which is responsible for tuning of synaptic vesicle release probability. SCRAPPER ubiquitinates presynaptic active zone protein RIM1, triggering its proteasomal degradation. Neurons from the Scrapper-knockout mice have hyper electrophysiological activity and contained increased amount of RIM1, and these phenotypes could be rescued by re-expression of SCRAPPER or knockdown of RIM1. The results highlight the importance of protein degradation in the regulation of synaptic activity in vivo. On the cover, the purple SCRAPPER humanoid is putting blue heart-shaped ubiquitins on the red RIM creatures. Japanese manga artist Hirohiko Araki created the cover image with scientific direction from Drs. Setou and Ageta.