Vol. 281, Issue 6, L1420-L1424, December 2001
RT-PCR reveals muscarinic acetylcholine receptor mRNA in the
pre-Bötzinger complex
Jiunu
Lai*,
Xuesi M.
Shao*,
Richard W.
Pan,
Edward
Dy,
Cindy H.
Huang, and
Jack L.
Feldman
Department of Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles,
California 90095-1763
Muscarinic receptors mediate the
postsynaptic excitatory effects of acetylcholine (ACh) on inspiratory
neurons in the pre-Bötzinger complex (pre-BötC), the
hypothesized site for respiratory rhythm generation. Because
pharmacological tools for identifying the subtypes of the muscarinic
receptors that underlie these effects are limited, we probed for mRNA
for these receptors in the pre-BötC. We used RT-PCR to determine
the expression of muscarinic receptor subtypes in tissue punches of the
pre-BötC taken from rat medullary slices. Cholinergic receptor
subtype M2 and M3 mRNAs were observed in the
first round of PCR amplification. All five subtypes,
M1-M5, were observed in the second round
of amplification. Our results suggest that the majority of muscarinic
receptor subtypes in the pre-BötC are M2 and
M3, with minor expression of M1,
M4, and M5.
reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction; neural control of
respiration; medullary slice; neonatal rat; messenger ribonucleic acid
*
J. Lai and X. Shao contributed equally to this work.
