Today’s bassoon news comes from the field of molecular biology, where Bassoon is a “scaffolding protein” that’s a key player is facilitating release of neurotransmitters. Bassoon is aided in this by the other scaffolding protein, called Piccolo. Interestingly, “Piccolo and Bassoon share a great deal of structural homology,” according to the journal Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience.
It’s good to hear news of bassoons occuring at the molecular scale, and also being helped by tiny piccolos to do whatever mysterious neurotransmitting function they are up to. Presumably there are bassoons in my brain too, which is a mildly surprising idea.