Abstract
About a decade ago, cell membranes from the electric organ of Torpedo and from the rat brain were transplanted to frog oocytes, which thus acquired functional Torpedo and rat neurotransmitter receptors. Nevertheless, the great potential that this method has for studying human diseases has remained virtually untapped. Here, we show that cell membranes from the postmortem brains of humans that suffered Alzheimer's disease can be microtransplanted to the plasma membrane of Xenopus oocytes. We show also that these postmortem membranes carry neurotransmitter receptors and voltage-operated channels that are still functional, even after they have been kept frozen for many years. This method provides a new and powerful approach to study directly the functional characteristics and structure of receptors, channels, and other membrane proteins of the Alzheimer's brain. This knowledge may help in understanding the basis of Alzheimer's disease and also help in developing new treatments.
Highlights
About a decade ago, cell membranes from the electric organ of Torpedo and from the rat brain were transplanted to frog oocytes, which acquired functional Torpedo and rat neurotransmitter receptors
Neurotransmitter receptors are key players in the process of synaptic transmission, and, in view of the neuronal loss, it is not surprising that the numbers of several types of receptors are reduced in the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
Most previous studies of receptors in AD have used biochemical and immunocytochemical methods, and because of many technical difficulties, almost nothing is known about the functional characteristics of the neurotransmitter receptors of the AD brain
Summary
Cell membranes from the electric organ of Torpedo and from the rat brain were transplanted to frog oocytes, which acquired functional Torpedo and rat neurotransmitter receptors. Over a score of years, we have developed two comparatively simple methods that allow us to study neurotransmitter receptors and ion channels from the human brain in great structural and functional detail. The other method, less known but perhaps more important for the study of AD and other diseases, involves the microtransplantation of cell membranes from the brain to the membrane of frog oocytes [19, 20].
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