Taxol is a natural plant product which has antimitotic activity. It is currently being investigated for use both as a cancer chemotherapy agent and as a tool to investigate microtubule involvement with various cellular functions. In the studies reported here, the actions of taxol on cultured adrenal medullary cells are compared to those of two other taxanes, baccatin III and 19-hydroxybaccatin ...

The effect of the endogenous cannabinoid ligand anandamide on the function of the cloned alpha7 subunit of the nicotinic acetylcholine (ACh) receptor expressed in Xenopus oocytes was investigated by using the two-electrode voltage-clamp technique. Anandamide reversibly inhibited nicotine (10 microM) induced-currents in a concentration-dependent manner (10 nM to 30 microM), with an IC50 value of...

GABAergic interneurons have been shown to be a major target of cholinergic inputs to the hippocampus. Because these interneurons project to pyramidal neurons as well as other interneurons, activation of the cholinergic system is likely to produce a complex modulation of local inhibitory activity. To better understand the role of post-synaptic alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the hipp...

Protein scaffolds are essential for specific and efficient downstream signaling at synapses. Though nicotinic receptors are widely expressed in the nervous system and influence numerous cellular events due in part to their calcium permeability, no scaffolds have yet been identified for the receptors in neurons. Here we show that specific members of the PSD-95 family of PDZ-containing proteins a...

Dear Editor, Nicotinamide with tetracycline or doxycycline is used in the treatment of bullous pemphigoid. Nicotinamide is used in doses of 1500 to 2000 mg/day in divided doses in these cases. Nicotinic acid/laropiprant (Tredaptive®) is a lipid lowering agent which contains 1000 mg of nicotinic acid (niacin) and 20 mg of laropiprant which is a selective antagonist of prostaglandin D2 receptor. ...

Nicotinic (cholinergic) neurotransmission plays a critical role in the vertebrate nervous system, underlies nicotine addiction, and nicotinic receptor dysfunction leads to neurological disorders. The C. elegans neuromuscular junction (NMJ) shares many characteristics with neuronal synapses, including multiple classes of postsynaptic currents. Here, we identify two genes required for the major e...

The nicotinic receptor at the nerve muscle synapse of vertebrates mediates the fast synaptic actions of the chemical transmitter acetylcholine. This receptor was the first ligand-gated receptor and ion channel to be characterized in pharmacological, biophysical, biochemical, and molecular biological terms. The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor has served as the prototype of ligand-gated ion chan...

Nicotine-stimulated (86)Rb(+) efflux and [(3)H]cytisine binding, both of which seem to measure the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, composed of alpha4 and beta2 subunits, were assessed in eight brain regions obtained from 14 inbred mouse strains. The potential role of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the nicotinic receptor alpha4 subunit gene (Chrna4) on nicotinic receptor binding and...