Abstract
We used an intracellular fluorescent probe, FURA-2M, to examine the responses of isolated rat chromaffin cells to applications of 1 mM acetylcholine (ACh). Our data showed two different populations of the cell responses to such stimulation. Responses of the first type demonstrated fast rise and decay phases of the Ca2+ transients and no significant decrease in their amplitude during repetitive stimulation of the cell with ACh. Cell responses of the second type showed remarkably slower rise and decay phases of the Ca2+ transients and a noticeable drop of the cell responses during repetitive ACh stimulation that could be recovered after KCl depolarization. We find no significant differences in the amplitudes of the transients in these two populations of the cells. We conclude that there is heterogeneity of the chromaffin cells according to their ACh receptors: the first subpopulation predominantly expresses ionotropic (nicotinic) receptors (n cells), whereas the second cell population has mainly metabotropic (muscarinic) ones (m cells), which are associated with Ca2+ release from the intracellular stores.
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Zaika, O.L., Pochynyuk, O.M. & Lukyanetz, E.A. Comparative Studies of Calcium Transients Induced by Acetylcholine in Rat Chromaffin Cells. Neurophysiology 34, 261–263 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020756828699
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020756828699