期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1981
卷号:78
期号:2
页码:775-779
DOI:10.1073/pnas.78.2.775
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:A stopped-flow spectroscopic technique was used to study the kinetics of ion transport by reconstituted membrane preparations containing purified acetylcholine receptor. Influx of thallium (I) into membrane vesicles was monitored as a decrease, due to quenching by the thallous ion, in the fluorescence of an entrapped fluorophore. In a reproducible manner, the reconstituted receptor responded to cholinergic agonists by mediating rapid ion transport in the millisecond time range. The effect of agonists was blocked by receptor desensitization and by histrionicotoxin and was absent in membrane vesicles lacking receptor. Analysis of the fast kinetics of cation transport produced by saturating concentrations of agonists yielded an estimated rate of transport through a single reconstituted receptor channel. Comparison of this rate with those reported for in vivo preparations and for purified membranes shows that the reconstituted protein closely resembles the physiologically active receptor.