0000000000755070
AUTHOR
Ch. Birtsch
Cellular distribution of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit mRNAs in the human cerebral cortex as revealed by non-isotopic in situ hybridization.
The pharmacology of telencephalic nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) has become an important issue in recent years. While in the human brain a direct pharmacological assessment is difficult to achieve the visualization of nAChRs has been enabled by histochemical techniques providing an ever increasing and improving resolution. Receptor autoradiography was used to visualize binding sites on the level of cortical layers whereas immunohistochemistry has allowed for the cell type-specific and ultrastructural localization of receptor protein. Further investigations have to elucidate the cellular sites of NAChR biosynthesis by visualizing subunit-specific transcripts. Using autopsy sample…
Cellular distribution in the rat telencephalon of mRNAs encoding for the alpha 3 and alpha 4 subunits of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor.
Pharmacological and electrophysiological studies provide evidence for the involvement of different nicotinic acetylcholine receptor isoforms in rat neocortical and hippocampal signal transduction. Yet, rather little is known on the cellular localization of these isoforms. With the availability of isoform specific nucleic acid probes and sensitive non-isotopic detection systems, nicotinic receptors can be studied on the mRNA level in individual neurons. In this way, we have paradigmatically studied the distribution of the alpha 3 and alpha 4 isoform mRNAs of the nicotinic receptor in the rat telencephalon. In the cerebral cortex, alpha 3 transcripts were mainly located in pyramidal neurons o…