Craig C. Garner

Administrative Appointments

• Co-Director, Stanford Down Syndrome Center (2004 - present)

Honors and Awards

• Beach Distinguished Lecture, Purdue University (2004)
• Gian Tondury Prize, Swiss Science Foundation (1989)
• A.K. Balls Award for Distinguished Research, Purdue University (1984)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Andreas Grabrucker, Christoph Maas, Dhananjay Wagh, Daniel Wetmore

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Developmental Biology
• Molecular and Cellular Physiology
• Neurosciences

Web Site Links

• My Lab Site

Research Interests

What are the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying synapse formation, stability, and elimination? This question is central to understanding both how the nervous system becomes wired during development, and how stable circuits, such as those thought to underlie the processes of learning and memory, are formed and maintained in the adult. To address these issues, our laboratory is studying synapse formation, stability and elimination at a variety of levels, e.g. from molecules to behavior. A major component of the lab is focused on the molecules that structurally define glutamatergic synapses, the major excitatory synapses of the nervous system. Here, we have used molecular strategies to identify and characterize many components of both the presynaptic active zone and the postsynaptic density. Our presynaptic studies are oriented towards a collection of active zone proteins, including Piccolo, Bassoon, RIM and Munc13, and their roles in active zone formation and function, with an emerging focus on molecular mechanisms of presynaptic forms of plasticity. Similarly, our work on postsynaptic proteins is focused on several classes of multidomain proteins, including PSD95/SAP90, SAP97, SAP102, ProSAP and SAPAPs, and their roles in assembling the postsynaptic density and establishing postsynaptic forms of plasticity via the directed trafficking of glutamate receptors. In addition to studying how these molecules are trafficked and recruited to nascent synapses, and their functional roles in synaptic plasticity, we are also examining mechanisms that determine their turnover and exchange rates within the synapse. We believe that these studies will be instrumental for understanding the development and function of neuronal circuits.

A new direction of the laboratory is to link changes in synaptic dynamics and plasticity to the cognitive deficits found in humans with genetic forms of mental retardation. Current efforts are directed towards understanding the...

Publications

• Normal protein composition of synapses in Ts65Dn mice: a mouse model of Down syndrome. Fernandez F, Trinidad JC, Blank M, Feng DD, Burlingame AL, Garner CC. J Neurochem. 2009; 110 (1): 157-69
• Cell autonomous defects in cortical development revealed by two-color chimera analysis. Kwiatkowski AV, Garner CC, Nelson WJ, Gertler FB. Mol Cell Neurosci. 2009; 41 (1): 44-50
• Synaptic SAP97 isoforms regulate AMPA receptor dynamics and access to presynaptic glutamate. Waites CL, Specht CG, Härtel K, Leal-Ortiz S, Genoux D, Li D, Drisdel RC, Jeyifous O, Cheyne JE, Green WN, Montgomery JM, Garner CC. J Neurosci. 2009; 29 (14): 4332-45
• SAP97 and CASK mediate sorting of NMDA receptors through a previously unknown secretory pathway. Jeyifous O, Waites CL, Specht CG, Fujisawa S, Schubert M, Lin EI, Marshall J, Aoki C, de Silva T, Montgomery JM, Garner CC, Green WN. Nat Neurosci. 2009; 12 (8): 1011-9
• Piccolo modulation of Synapsin1a dynamics regulates synaptic vesicle exocytosis. Leal-Ortiz S, Waites CL, Terry-Lorenzo R, Zamorano P, Gundelfinger ED, Garner CC. J Cell Biol. 2008; 181 (5): 831-46