Primary Structure of Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor.

Although we now understand the general principles of chemical signalling between nerve cells in the brain, our appreciation of the molecular mechanisms involved has been limited by the complexity of the system and the scarcity of material. In our work we have taken a new approach to this problem and have focused our attention on nicotinic cholinergic synaptic transmission in the brain. Using the techniques of molecular biology, we have discovered a family of genes that encode proteins that associate in a large variety of combinations to produce many different nicotinic acetylcholine receptor molecules. We have shown that the receptors thus formed differ in their structures, their pharmacologies, their functional properties,and their distribution in the adult brain. This unexpected diversity changes the way we think about nicotinic cholinergic receptors in the brain, forcing us to consider them as sites of action of pharmacological agents and making available to us a more precise family of targets for therapeutic drugs.