Prickle modulation of vesicle transport--relevance to seisure disorders

Big thanks to the BDSC for the heads up on this paper related to seizure disorders.

Salleh N. Ehaideb, Atulya Iyengar, Atsushi Ueda, Gary J. Iacobucci, Cathryn Cranston, Alexander G. Bassuk, David Gubb, Jeffrey D. Axelrod, Shermali Gunawardena, Chun-Fang Wua, and J. Robert Manaka (2014) prickle modulates microtubule polarity and axonal transport to ameliorate seizures in flies. PNAS.

From the abstract: "Recent analyses in flies, mice, zebrafish, and humans showed that mutations in prickle orthologs result in epileptic phenotypes, although the mechanism responsible for generating the seizures was unknown. Here, we show that Prickle organizes microtubule polarity and affects their growth dynamics in axons of Drosophila neurons, which in turn influences both anterograde and retrograde vesicle transport. ... These data reveal a previously unidentified pathway in the pathophysiology of seizure disorders and provide evidence for a more generalized cellular mechanism whereby Prickle mediates polarity by influencing microtubule-mediated transport."