Glutamate transporters are operative at an early developmental stage well before synapse formation, but their functional significance has not been determined. We now report that blockade of glutamate transporters in the immature neocortex generates recurrent NMDA receptor-mediated currents associated with synchronous oscillations of [Ca2+]i in the entire neuronal population. Intracerebroventric...

Glutamate transporters are operative at an early developmental stage well before synapse formation, but their functional significance has not been determined. We now report that blockade of glutamate transporters in the immature neocortex generates recurrent NMDA receptor-mediated currents associated with synchronous oscillations of [Ca 2 ]i in the entire neuronal population. Intracerebroventri...

Glutamate transporters play important roles in the termination of excitatory neurotransmission and in providing cells throughout the body with glutamate for metabolic purposes. The high-affinity glutamate transporters EAAC1 (SLC1A1), GLT1 (SLC1A2), GLAST (SLC1A3), EAAT4 (SLC1A6), and EAAT5 (SLC1A7) mediate the cellular uptake of glutamate by the co-transport of three sodium ions (Na(+)) and one...

Mechanical loading of the skeleton is important for maintenance of adequate bone mass and defined mechanical stimuli are highly osteogenic. The identification of mechanoresponsive signalling molecules in bone may allow osteogenic signals to be mimicked. This approach would be useful in the treatment of bone pathologies where the skeleton is too weak to withstand osteogenic forces and to tissue ...

Bidirectional interactions between neurons and glial cells are crucial to the genesis of pathological pain. The mechanisms regulating these interactions and the role of this process in relaying synaptic input in the spinal dorsal horn remain to be established. We studied the role of glutamate transporters in the regulation of such interactions. On pharmacological blockade of glutamate transport...

In the nervous system, glutamate is an excitatory aminoacid which at higher concentrations has been implicated in a number of disorders. Glutamate is stored in presynaptic vesicles and is released by calcium-dependent exocytosis. After its action on ionotropic receptors (iGluR, related to ionic channels) or metabotropic receptors (mGluR, related to metabolic formation of second messengers), glu...

The goal of this study was to explore the effect of glutamate transporter density on spillover activation of AMPA and NMDA receptors at neighboring synapses by diffusion of glutamate in extracellular space following fast excitatory synaptic release at an active synapse. We used MCell, a Monte Carlo simulator of molecular signaling, to study the release of glutamate and diffusion in 3-D geometri...

In this review, we briefly describe glutamate (Glu) metabolism and its specific transports and receptors in the central nervous system (CNS). Thereafter, we focus on excitatory amino acid transporters, cystine/glutamate antiporters (system xc-) and vesicular glutamate transporters, specifically addressing their location and roles in CNS and the molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of ...

The D-isomer of aspartate is efficiently transported by high-affinity Na(+)/K(+)-dependent glutamate transporters and is an effective ligand of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. To facilitate analysis of the regulation of these proteins in their native membranes, we synthesized a photolabile analogue of D-aspartate, 4-methoxy-7-nitroindolinyl-D-aspartate (MNI-D-aspartate). This compound wa...

Glutamate is the principal excitatory neurotransmitter in brain. Our knowledge of the glutamatergic synapse has advanced enormously in the last 10 years, primarily through application of molecular biological techniques to the study of glutamate receptors and transporters. There are three families of ionotropic receptors with intrinsic cation permeable channels [N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), alph...