Background: Ionotropic glutamate receptors mediate fast excitatory synaptic transmission in the vertebrate CNS. Results: Conformational flexibility and dimensions of functional membrane-embedded full-length GluA2flop receptors are characterized by atomic force microscopy. Conclusion: Conformational flexibility and dimensions are both strongly affected by receptor density. Significance: The reco...

The amino acid L-glutamate mediates signals at excitatory synapses in the CNS where its effects are controlled by co-ordinated activities of various types of glutamate receptor and transporter. This signalling mechanism has proved to be far more ubiquitous with many different cell types responding to glutamate. The glutamate transporter GLAST-1 was the first component of this pathway identified...

Glutamatergic Drosophila neuromuscular junctions contain two spatially, biophysically, and pharmacologically distinct subtypes of postsynaptic glutamate receptor (GluR). These receptor subtypes appear to be molecularly identical except that A receptors contain the subunit GluRIIA (but not GluRIIB), and B receptors contain the subunit GluRIIB (but not GluRIIA). A- and B-type receptors are coexpr...

The etiology of multiple sclerosis (MS) is currently unknown. However, one potential mechanism involved in the disease may be excitotoxicity. The elevation of glutamate in cerebrospinal fluid, as well as changes in the expression of glutamate receptors (iGluRs and mGluRs) and excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs), have been observed in the brains of MS patients and animals subjected to exp...

Along with ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors, the cystine/glutamate antiporter x(c)(-) may play a critical role in CNS pathology. High levels of extracellular glutamate inhibit the import of cystine, resulting in the depletion of glutathione and a form of cell injury called oxidative glutamate toxicity. Here we show that a portion of the cell death associated with NMDA receptor-in...

Introduction: 17β-estradiol modulates nociception by binding to estrogenic receptors and also by allosteric interaction with other membrane-bound receptors like glutamate and GABAA receptors. Beside its autonomic functions, paragigantocellularis lateralis (LPGi) nucleus is also involved in pain modulation. The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of the intracellular estrogen...

The family of ionotropic glutamate receptors includes 2 subunits, delta1 and delta2, the physiological relevance of which remains poorly understood. Both are nonfunctional in heterologous expression systems, although the isolated, crystallized ligand binding domain (LBD) of delta2 is capable of binding D-serine. To investigate these seemingly contradictory observations we tested whether delta r...

Drug addiction has often been described as a "hijacking" of the brain circuits involved in learning and memory. Glutamate is the principal excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, and its contribution to synaptic plasticity and learning processes is well established in animal models. Likewise, over the past 20 years the addiction field has ascribed a critical role for glutamatergic transmissio...

Glutamate receptors can be broadly classified into two subtypes: ionotropic glutamate receptors, which are ligand-gated ion channels, and metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlu receptors), which are coupled via G proteins to second messenger systems (32). When activated, ionotropic glutamate receptors produce an influx of cations into the cell, directly depolarizing the postsynaptic neuron and ...

The "waist" area (W) of the parabrachial nucleus contains neurons that receive orosensory input and play a role in the initiation of oromotor behaviors. Immunohistochemical data indicate that neurons in W receive glutamatergic input and express glutamate receptors, but a behavioral role for glutamate neurotransmission within W has not been investigated. To determine the role of specific glutama...