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Pharmacological characterization of M1 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor-mediated Gq activation in rat cerebral cortical and hippocampal membranes

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Abstract

This study aimed to pharmacologically characterize the response derived from functional activation of Gq proteins coupled with native muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Rat cerebral cortical and hippocampal membranes were prepared, and the effects of a range of mAChR agonists and antagonists, allosteric modulators, and muscarinic toxins were determined by an antibody-capture scintillation proximity assay combined with [35S]GTPγS binding, using the anti-Gαq antibody sc-393. Increased specific [35S]GTPγS binding, elicited by carbachol (CCh), was selectively inhibited by the muscarinic toxin MT7, and was resistant to membrane pretreatment with N-ethylmaleimide, indicating that the response derived exclusively from Gαq, selectively coupled with the M1 mAChR. In addition to CCh, many mAChR agonists, including oxotremorine, arecholine, and methacholine, stimulated binding in a concentration-dependent manner with varied potencies and efficacies. The intrinsic activities of partial M1 mAChR agonists in the present study were generally lower than previously reported in M1-expressing cells. Xanomeline and N-desmethylclozapine had negligible or minimal agonist properties. CCh-stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding to Gαq was inhibited by mAChR antagonists, including scopolamine, ipratropium, atropine, 4-DAMP, pirenzepine, and AF-DX 116, with a rank order of potency consistent with previous studies of M1-expressing cells. There was a highly significant correlation between the potencies of 13 agonists and 19 antagonists in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. The effects of several allosteric mAChR modulators were also investigated. These data provide a comprehensive pharmacological profile of the Gq-coupled M1 mAChR subtype natively expressed at physiological levels in rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Grant for Research Work from the Saitama Medical University, Japan.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Saitama Medical University, 38 Morohongo, Moroyama-machi, Iruma-gun, Saitama, 350-0495, Japan

    Yuji Odagaki, Masakazu Kinoshita & Ryoichi Toyoshima

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  1. Yuji Odagaki
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Correspondence to Yuji Odagaki.

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Odagaki, Y., Kinoshita, M. & Toyoshima, R. Pharmacological characterization of M1 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor-mediated Gq activation in rat cerebral cortical and hippocampal membranes. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 386, 937–947 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00210-013-0887-7

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