UC Irvine

Neurexins are widely thought to promote synapse formation and to organize synapse properties. Here we found that in contrast to neurexin-1 and neurexin-3, neurexin-2 unexpectedly restricts synapse formation. In the hippocampus, constitutive or neuron-specific deletions of neurexin-2 nearly doubled the strength of excitatory CA3➔CA1 region synaptic connections and markedly increased their release probability. No effect on inhibitory synapses was detected. Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) superresolution microscopy revealed that the neuron-specific neurexin-2 deletion elevated the density of excitatory CA1 region synapses nearly twofold. Moreover, hippocampal neurexin-2 deletions also increased synaptic connectivity in the CA1 region when induced in mature mice and impaired the cognitive flexibility of spatial memory. Thus, neurexin-2 controls the dynamics of hippocampal synaptic circuits by repressing synapse assembly throughout life, a restrictive function that markedly differs from that of neurexin-1 and neurexin-3 and of other synaptic adhesion molecules, suggesting that neurexins evolutionarily diverged into opposing pro- and antisynaptogenic organizers.