Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Heterogeneity Of Nicotinic Receptor Class And Subunit Mrna Expression Among Individual Parasympathetic Neurons From Rat Intracardiac Ganglia, Kevin Poth, Thomas J. Nutter, Javier Cuevas, Michael J. Parker, David J. Adams, Charles W. Luetje

Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute

Neurons have the potential to form thousands of distinct neuronal nicotinic receptors from the eight α and three β subunits that currently are known. In an effort to determine how much of this potential complexity is realized among individual neurons, we examined the nicotinic pharmacological and biophysical properties and receptor subunit mRNA expression patterns in individual neurons cultured from rat epicardial ganglia. Analysis of the whole-cell pharmacology of these neurons showed a diversity of responses to the agonists acetylcholine, nicotine, cytisine, and 1,1-dimethyl-4- phenylpiperazinium, suggesting that a heterogeneous population of nicotinic receptor classes, or subtypes, is expressed by individual neurons. …