PURPOSE OF THE STUDY To determine the effects of acetylcholine and spermineNONOate--a NO donor--on RBC membrane and oxygen carrying properties. MATERIAL AND METHODS Aliquots of venous blood from eleven healthy subjects were incubated with ACh 10(-3) M, ACh 10(-5) M, spermineNONOate 10(-5) M and spermineNONOate 10(-4) M. The following parameters were determined: erythrocyte aggregation and def...

Preliminary studies showed that dorsal artery contraction mediated by acetylcholine (ACh) is blocked with indomethacin in intertidal fish (G. laevifrons). Our objective was to characterize the cholinergic pathway in several artery vessels of the I. conceptionis. Afferent and efferent branchial, dorsal and mesenteric arteries were dissected of 6 juvenile specimens, isometric tension studies were...

The neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) has been accorded an important role in supporting learning and memory processes in the hippocampus. Cholinergic activity in the hippocampus is correlated with memory, and restoration of ACh in the hippocampus after disruption of the septohippocampal pathway is sufficient to rescue memory. However, selective ablation of cholinergic septohippocampal projec...

Effect of external Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]o) on spontaneous and various types of stimuli-induced acetylcholine (ACh) release from guinea-pig ileum myenteric plexus was studied. Electrical field stimulation- or high-K+-induced ACh release increased with the increment of [Ca2+]o. On the other hand, the spontaneous and the nicotine-induced ACh release increased up to 0.45 mM [Ca2+]o and then de...

Recent case-controlled clinical studies show that bronchioalveolar carcinomas (BAC) are correlated with smoking. Nicotine, the addictive component of cigarettes, accelerates cell proliferation through nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR). In this study, we show that human BACs produce acetylcholine (ACh) and contain several cholinergic factors including acetylcholinesterase (AChE), choline...

Nonneuronal cholinergic system plays a primary role in maintaining homeostasis. It has been proved that endogenous neuronal acetylcholine (ACh) could play an anti-inflammatory role, and exogenous cholinergic agonists could weaken macrophages inflammatory response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation through activation of α7 subunit-containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR). We as...

Polymodal nociceptors sense and integrate information on injurious mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli. Chemical signals either activate nociceptors or modulate their responses to other stimuli. One chemical known to activate or modulate responses of nociceptors is acetylcholine (ACh). Across evolution nociceptors express subunits of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) family, a ...

We used intracellular recording to investigate how muscarinic acetylcholine receptors and the serine kinase signal transduction cascade are involved in regulating transmitter release in the neuromuscular synapses of the levator auris longus muscle from adult rats. Experiments with M1 and M2 selective blockers show that these subtypes of muscarinic receptors were involved in enhancing and inhibi...

Asperparalines produced by Aspergillus japonicus JV-23 induce paralysis in silkworm (Bombyx mori) larvae, but the target underlying insect toxicity remains unknown. In the present study, we have investigated the actions of asperparaline A on ligand-gated ion channels expressed in cultured larval brain neurons of the silkworm using patch-clamp electrophysiology. Bath-application of asperparaline...

Neuregulins are highly expressed in the CNS, especially in cholinergic neurons. We have examined the effect of neuregulin on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in neurons dissociated from the rat hippocampus. Rapid application of acetylcholine (ACh) induced a rapidly rising and decaying inward current in some of the neurons, which was completely blocked by methyllycaconitine, a specific...