Probing Surfaces of a Synaptic Receptor

烟碱型乙酰胆碱受体(AcChR)是一种跨膜蛋白，其氨基酸序列由四个不同的多肽亚基组成。尽管已经发表了几种基于理论计算的关于每个亚单位折叠的组织模型，但组织水平在很大程度上仍然是推测性的建议。由于在不久的将来无法获得细胞膜中受体的详细结构原子坐标，研究替代方案是绘制膜中AcChR每个亚单位的特定位置(外部或内部)的暴露元素图。电射线鱼雷Calfornica AcChR的电子组织将被用来开发检测细胞质位置的标记，并确定包含在所有物种进化中高度保守的氨基酸(半胱氨酸)的特定区域的环境是否对细胞膜中除AcChR外的其他成分的变化敏感。

The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AcChR) is a transmembranous protein whose amino acid sequence is known and organized in an unknown manner from four different polypeptide subunits. Although several organizational models regarding the folding of each subunit based on theoretical calculations have been published, the level of organization remains largely as speculative suggestions. Because there is no hope of obtaining, in the near future, detailed structural atomic coordinates of the receptor in the cell membrane, the research alternatives are to map exposed elements at specific sites (external or internal) of each subunit of the AcChR in membranes. Electric tissue of the electric ray Torpedo californica AcChR will be used to develop markers for detecting the cytoplasmic site and to determine whether the environment of one particular region containing an amino acid (cysteine) that has been highly conserved in the evolution of all species is sensitive to changes in other components of the cell membrane besides the AcChR.