Receptors & channels最新文献

Losartan, an angiotensin II type-1 receptor (AT1) antagonist, was used to investigate whether it can offer protection against the sustained hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy, and renal damage induced by chronic inhibition of nitric oxide (NO) by Nomega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME). We studied the involvement of both NO metabolism and oxidative stress in L-NAME-induced hypertension, and how AT1 receptor antagonism may interact. Male Wistar albino rats were subjected to NO synthesis inhibition by the use of L-NAME (60 mg/kg/day), and the effects of losartan (10 mg/kg/day) in drinking water for six weeks were observed. After six weeks, animals were subjected to the measurements for systolic, mean, and diastolic blood pressure (BPs, BPm, and BPd, respectively). Under light ether anesthesia blood was withdrawn for ACE activity, NOx and creatinine determinations. Heart and kidneys were weighed, and organ indices were calculated comparing to their body weights. These tissues were immediately preserved for GSH, MDA, NOx estimations. Chronic L-NAME treatment raised BPs, BPm, and BPd, respectively, above the normal. Treatment also increased NOx in plasma, significantly decreased it in the heart, and tended to increase it in kidney. L-NAME caused GSH depletion in the heart and kidney tissues with a concomitant increase in MDA contents in both the tissues. Plasma creatinine doubled in L-NAME-treated animals. Plasma ACE activity showed a nonsignificant decrease below control. Concurrent treatment with losartan almost completely inhibited any rise in blood pressure. Losartan replenished the partly depleted cardiac and renal antioxidant GSH and ameliorated the increase of oxidative stress damage index, MDA. However, losartan alone did not change appreciably the plasma level or cardiac and renal contents of NO,. Losartan plus L-NAME treatment caused an increase in plasma ACE activity above control. Furthermore, losartan ameliorated the L-NAME induced increase in creatinine back to value nonsignificantly different from control.

Activation of the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK), insulin (IRK) or neurotrophin B (TrkB), was characterized and compared in olfactory bulb neuron (OBN) cultures from Sprague Dawley rats and sv129 B6 mice. Current suppression attributed to modulation of the delayed rectifier, Kv1.3, a voltage-gated potassium (Kv) channel of the Shaker family, was observed following acute application of the growth factors, insulin or brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), to mitral cells of either rodent model. Using site-directed mutagenesis of putative tyrosine phosphorylation recognition motifs in the channel, we find that stimulation of Kv1.3 with these growth factors causes multiple phosphorylation, albeit via different residue combinations that are RTK specific.

Levels of the 19 proteinous amino acids and total free amino acids were assayed by gas-liquid chromatography in cytosols of rat atrial and ventricular muscle cardiomyocytes. The tissues were assayed after the rats had been exposed to the cardioactive drugs digoxin, caffeine, and isoproterenol, each having different mechanisms of action. We demonstrated that, in the atrial and ventricular cardiac muscle cytosol of control (untreated) rats, arginine, glutamine, and cysteine existed in their highest levels: 35.1% and 17.6%; 14.8% and 51.6%; 9.9% and 0.25% of the total free amino acids, respectively. The levels of the other amino acids in the atrial and ventricular cardiac muscle cytosols ranged between 0.1% and 10.0% of the total free amino acids. Digoxin, caffeine, and isoproterenol significantly reduced the total amount of cytosolic free amino acids in the atrial heart muscle cytosol to 7.6%, 9.0%, and 9.2% of the control value (100%), and in the ventricular heart muscle cytosol to 31.1%, 43.2%, and 28.3% of the control. The three drugs tested changed the cytosols' levels of arginine, cysteine, tryptophane, asparagine, and tyrosine in atrial and ventricular heart muscle cytosol, as compared to the control groups (calculated as a percent of the total free amino acids in the experimental groups). The role of proteinous amino acids in the function of the heart muscle and in the mechanism of action of these drugs on the mammalian heart is discussed.

After transient transfection of an hNav1.4-L443C/A444W mutant clone, HEK-293 cells exhibited large inactivation-deficient Na+currents. We subsequently established a stable cell line expressing robust inactivation-deficient Na+currents. Persistent late Na+currents were far more sensitive to block by class 1 anti-arrhythmic flecainide, mexiletine, propafenone, and amiodarone at 10 microM than peak Na+currents. Such results support a hypothesis that persistent late Na+currents are in vivo targets for class 1 anti-arrhythmic drugs at their therapeutic plasma concentrations. Stably transfected HEK-293 cells expressing robust inactivation-deficient Na+currents will likely be suitable for screening novel drugs that target persistent late Na+currents selectively.

The alpha1A-adrenergic receptor (AR) has a higher affinity for several agonists and antagonists compared to alpha1B or alpha1D ARs. Mutagenesis studies were used to determine residues potentially responsible for this subtype selectivity. Oxymetazoline has a 50-fold lower affinity for alpha1D ARs compared to alpha1A ARs and also displayed a significant loss of affinity for an alpha1A Leu-290 to Phe mutant. It was concluded that steric interactions between the alpha1D ARs Phe-360 and the bulkytert-butyl group of oxymetazoline partially accounts for this lower affinity. Thus, the alpha1A AR binding pocket may more easily accommodate bulk at the paraposition of the phenyl ring than the alpha1D AR.

Multivariate methods and molecular properties are utilized to show similarity of pyridine-3-carboxylic acid (nicotinic acid) to seven drugs that penetrate the central nervous system. Multivariate methods applied include cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, correspondence analysis, self organizing tree algorithm (SOTA) analysis, factor analysis, and principal component analysis. Numerical values of properties for nicotinic acid showed very high correlation with the values from dihydropyridine, barbital, metharbital, phenobarbital, methohexital, 4-aminohex-5-enoic acid, and (4-chlorophenyl)(5-fluoro-2-hydroxyphenyl)methanone. Descriptive statistics of property values for these drugs showed overlapping numerical values for partition coefficients, index of refraction, and nOnN. Principal component analysis and factor analysis of molecular properties showed that nicotinic acid is highly similar to dihydropyridine as well as to other members of this group of drugs. Applying cluster analysis utilizing standard euclidean distance with single linkage and centroid linkage showed that nicotinic acid is highly similar to dihydropyridine and both are consistently grouped into the identical cluster (indicating high similarity). Both nicotinic acid and dihydropyridine show zero violations of the Rule of 5, which indicates good bioavailability characteristics. Discriminant analysis of molecular properties for these eight compounds could not demonstrate differentiation between nicotinic acid and dihydropyridine within the properties applied, this indicating high level of similarity. Neural cluster analysis of molecular properties showed that nicotinic acid and dihydropyridine are included into the same cluster (indicating very strong similarity). SOTA analysis also placed nicotinic acid and dihydropyridine into the same cluster unit. SOTA analysis of molecular properties indicates high similarity between nicotinic acid and dihydropyridine. Correspondence analysis was performed on the molecular properties and showed that there exists considerable association between dihydropyridine and nicotinic acid. Multiple regression analysis of these molecular properties produced a mathematical equation to predict the formula weight of similar compounds for use as drug carriers.

Recombinant baculoviruses, in which the insect cell-specific polyhedrin promoter has been replaced with a mammalian cell-active expression cassette (BacMam viruses), are efficient gene delivery vehicles for many mammalian cell types. BacMam viruses have been generated for expression of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and used to establish Ca2+mobilization assays in HEK-293 human embryonic kidney cells and U-2 OS human osteosarcoma cells. U-2 OS cells are highly susceptible to BacMam-based gene delivery and lack many of the endogenous receptors present on HEK-293 and other mammalian cell lines typically used for heterologous expression of GPCRs. U-2 OS cells were found to have a null background for muscarine, ADP, ATP, UTP, UDP, and lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). Consequently, U-2 OS cells transduced with BacMam constructs encoding the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5subtypes), the P2Y receptors (P2Y1, P2Y2), or the LPA receptors (EDG-2, EDG-7) were used for the establishment of whole-cell Ca2+mobilization assays, assays that cannot readily be established in HEK-293 cells. U-2 OS cells were susceptible to simultaneous expression of multiple genes delivered by BacMam vectors. In U-2 OS cells the functional expression of the Gi-coupled M2and M4receptors was dependent on co-expression of the receptor and a G protein chimera, both of which were delivered to the cells via BacMam viruses. The use of U-2 OS cells and BacMam-based gene delivery has facilitated development of whole-cell-based GPCR functional assays, especially for P2Y, muscarininc acetylcholine, and LPA receptors.