神经生物学

The ability to record the real-time movement of a protein is quite enthralling; in effect, this is what we achieve when we record the activity of an individual ion channel. Clearly we do not “see” the amino acids that make up the ion channel undergo the conformational changes that must occur, but we observe the ...

Combined electrophysiological and fluorometric recordings have proven to be a powerful tool, especially in the field of neurobiology. With this combination it became possible to overcome three major limitations of pure electrophysiological measurements. First, high-reso ...

Patch-clamp recording is a powerful approach to monitoring membrane electrical activity with high temporal resolution. However, the spatial resolution of patch-clamp recording in a distributed structure such as a neuron or a brain slice is limited by the fact that each electrode records ...

Brain slices have become an integral part of synaptic and cellular physiology since the pioneering studies of Henry McIlwain (Li and McIlwain, 1957; Yamamoto and McIlwain, 1966). The hippocampal slice preparation was first brought to the United States from Per Anderson’s lab, initially by T ...

The patch-clamp technique, introduced by Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann (Neher and Sakmann, 1976) in the mid-1970s facilitated recordings of currents through single-ion channels in living cells, advancing the ability to study the membrane function of excitable cells, such as neurons. Ion ...

The whole-cell patch-clamp recording technique (Marty and Neher, 1995) is nowadays a standard method for studying electrophysiological properties of the cellular membranes and synaptic inputs. This technique has been applied mainly to in vitro preparations such as culture cells, d ...

“The determination of the three-dimensional structures of protein molecules showed for the first time in detail the construction of the molecular ‘machines’ of the life cycle. If we want to learn how these ‘machines’ work, it is not sufficient only to know their construction. We actually have to see ...

The development of molecular cloning techniques over the past two decades has generated a powerful arsenal of tools for the study of gene structure and function. It is now possible to synthesize complementary DNA (cDNA) copies of mRNAs from virtually any source and to propagate these cDNAs in vit ...

In vitro translation systems are extremely important tools for studying protein biosynthesis. These systems have been most useful in revealing the intracellular sites of synthesis of numerous proteins, the nature of cotranslational proteolytic cleavage events, the process of c ...

Molecular cloning is the process of inserting foreign fragments of DNA into a plasmid or bacteriophage vector that is capable of autonomous replication in a suitable host cell. The resulting recombinant DNA molecules can then be amplified by growth in the host and isolated in pure form. The nucle ...

Defensive behaviors of lower mammals constitute a significant model for understanding human emotional disorders. They generally occur in response to a number of threatening stimuli, including predators, attacking conspecifics, and dangerous objects or situations. Such beh ...

Receptors, in general, are not highly expressed on endogenous cell surfaces. Adrenergic receptors (ARs) are commonly expressed in the femtomolar range. Correspondingly, their mRNA levels are also present in limited quantities. Northern analysis of the adrenergic receptors has co ...

In the search for novel G-protein-coupled receptor genes, two common approaches have worked fairly well and are relatively easy to perform. One method is homology-based screening approaches, which utilize low-stringency screening of genomic or cDNA libraries with a known cDNA probe. The ...

Adrenergic receptors (ARs) belong to a superfamily of the G-protein-coupled receptors and are categorized by their binding to endogenously occurring catecholamines, i.e., norepinephrine and epinephrine. Adrenergic receptors are classified into three groups (α1-, α2-, and β-ARs ...

Once a cDNA sequence for one of the adrenergic receptors (ARs) is obtained, it is useful to determine the restriction endonuclease sites in the sequence, to translate the nucleotide sequence into the protein sequence, to compare the sequence with known adrenergic receptor sequences in order ...

The advent of transgenic mice has ushered in an explosion of new knowledge regarding key roles of adrenergic receptors (ARs) in central nervous system- (CNS) mediated blood pressure control, states of alertness/sedation, analgesic pathways, and temperature control; these findings h ...

With the advent of recombinant protein systems to manufacture large volumes of cloned receptors, antibodies against the α-adrenergic receptors (α-ARs) have become available (1). These antibodies are useful tools for the immunocytochemical detection of cells containing the adre ...

Modulation of gene expression at the level of mRNA stability has emerged as an important regulatory paradigm. Although several general models of eukaryotic mRNA decay have been described, the details of how mRNA decay occurs for G-protein-coupled receptors is minimally characterize ...

The β-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) are important modulators in the sympathetic control of various metabolic processes in the central (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (1–4). The β-ARs mediate the physiological effects of the catecholamines epinephrine and norepinephrine. Th ...

Adrenergic receptors (ARs) are G-protein-coupled transmembrane glyco-proteins that play a key role in mediating the sympathoadrenal response to stress. Pharmacological studies have suggested the existence of multiple adrenergic receptor subtypes and sub-subtypes, and to ...