The Protein Lifetime Synaptome Atlas

Synapse proteins underpin all behaviour and their lifetime is crucial to understanding how memories are stored in synapses and how diseases cause behavioural impairments. We have developed methods to quantify the lifetime of proteins in individual synapses across the mouse brain and lifespan. We quantified the lifetime of PSD95, a postsynaptic protein required for writing and maintenance of memories, in individual excitatory synapses across the brain of young, mature and old mice. The Protein Lifetime Synaptome Atlas shows diverse synapses form a spatial architecture in dendrites, neurons, circuits and brain regions that changes across the lifespan. Synapses with different protein lifetimes may reveal the location, duration and age-dependence of memory storage.