GABAB Receptors Couple To Potassium And Calcium Channels On Identified Lateral Perforant Pathway Projection Neurons. Xueyong Wang and Nevin A. Lambert. Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Medical College of Georgia, and Medical Research Service, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Augusta, Georgia, 30912-2300.
APStracts 6:0517N, 1999.
Activation of presynaptic GABAB receptors inhibits neurotransmitter release at most cortical synapses, at least in part due to inhibition of voltage-gated calcium channels. One synapse where this is not the case is the lateral perforant pathway synapse onto dentate granule cells in the hippocampus. We asked whether the neurons that make these synapses express GABAB receptors that can couple to ion channels. Perforant pathway projection neurons were labeled by injecting retrograde tracer into the dorsal hippocampus. The GABAB receptor agonist baclofen (10?M) activated inwardly-rectifying potassium channels and inhibited currents mediated by voltage-gated calcium channels in retrogradely labeled neurons in layer II of the lateral entorhinal cortex. These effects were reversed by coapplication of the selective GABAB receptor antagonist CGP 55845A (1?M). Equivalent effects were produced by 100?M adenosine, which inhibits neurotransmitter release at lateral perforant pathway synapses. The effects of baclofen and adenosine on inward currents were largely occlusive. These results suggest that the absence of GABAB receptor-mediated presynaptic inhibition at lateral perforant pathway synapses is not simply due to a failure to express these receptors, and imply that GABAB receptors can either be selectively localized or regulated at terminal versus somatodendritic domains.
Received 1 June 1999; accepted in final form 8 October 1999.
APS Manuscript Number J443-9.
Article publication pending Journal of Neurophysiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1999 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 21 December 1999