Updated project metadata.
Neuroserpin is a serine protease inhibitor that regulates the activity of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) in the nervous system. Neuroserpin is strongly expressed during nervous system development as well as during adulthood, when it is predominantly found in regions eliciting synaptic plasticity. In the hippocampus, neuroserpin regulates developmental neurogenesis, synaptic maturation and in adult mice it modulates synaptic plasticity and controls cognitive and social behavior. High expression levels of neuroserpin in the cerebral cortex starting from prenatal stage and persisting during adulthood suggest an important role for the serpin in the formation of this brain region and in the maintenance of cortical functions. In order to uncover neuroserpin function in the cerebral cortex, in this work we performed a comprehensive investigation of its expression pattern during development and in the adulthood. Moreover, we assessed the role of neuroserpin in cortex formation by comparing cortical lamination and neuronal maturation between neuroserpin-deficient and control mice. Finally, we evaluated a possible regulatory role of neuroserpin at cortical synapses in neuroserpin-deficient mice. We observed that neuroserpin is expressed starting from the beginning of corticogenesis until adulthood throughout the cortex in both glutamatergic projection neurons and GABA-ergic interneurons. However, in the absence of neuroserpin we did not detect any alteration in cortical layer formation, in soma size, in dendritic length, and the ultrastructure. Furthermore no significant quantitative changes could be observed in the proteome of cortical synapses could be observed upon Neuroserpin deficiency. We conclude that, although strongly expressed in the cerebral cortex, absence of neuroserpin does not lead to developmental abnormalities, and does not perturb composition of the cortical synaptic proteome.