Microanalytical Methods in Neurochemistry

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This research project, supported in the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, concerns the combination of capillary electrophoresis in narrow-bore capillaries with sensitive and selective detection methods to address several unique experiments in cellular neuroscience. The three fundamental goals of this project are to develop ultra-low volume separation methods to dynamically and selectively follow chemical release from single nerve cells, growth cones, and synapses; to develop capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry to quantify phospholipids in membranes of whole cells, regional sections of the plasma membrane, and axonal growth cones in culture; and to develop methods to identify and quantify chemical messengers in single developing growth cones. These techniques will be brought to bear on two important areas of neurobiology, namely neural development through the study of growth cones and cell-to-cell communication through events at the membrane. The analytical methodology development to be pursued in this project, which builds upon results obtained by Professor Ewing and his students during the tenure of NSF grant CHE-9106832, is important to the achievement of dimensionally and molecularly selective neurochemical measurements at the single cell level. These general methodologies are also important in biotechnology and can be expected to contribute to the development of essential instrumentation for environmental studies