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Microtransplantation of acetylcholine receptors from normal or denervated rat skeletal muscles to frog oocytes
Author(s) -
Bernareggi Annalisa,
ReyesRuiz Jorge Mauricio,
Lorenzon Paola,
Ruzzier Fabio,
Miledi Ricardo
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2010.202994
Subject(s) - acetylcholine , acetylcholine receptor , receptor , chemistry , endocrinology , denervation , neuromuscular junction , medicine , anatomy , biology , neuroscience , microbiology and biotechnology
Non‐technical summary Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) expressed by skeletal muscle are the key proteins of the motoneuron–muscle communication necessary to induce muscle contraction. The biophysical and pharmacological characterization of the receptors in adult human skeletal muscle is limited by the difficulties associated with obtaining, and maintaining, suitable biopsy material. In this paper, we characterized some nAChR properties of innervated and denervated skeletal muscle by injecting the membranes into Xenopus oocytes. Such an approach, termed the microtransplantation technique, offers two main advantages: (1) direct characterization of the original receptors, still embedded in their natural lipid environment with their associated molecules; and (2) the possibility of using membranes isolated from postmortem frozen tissues. We demonstrate that this technique can be a very simple and useful approach to study skeletal muscle receptors and ion channels under different physiological and pathological conditions.