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Study of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on cultured antennal lobe neurones from adult honeybee brains

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Invertebrate Neuroscience

Abstract

In insects, acetylcholine (ACh) is the main neurotransmitter, and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) mediate fast cholinergic synaptic transmission. In the honeybee, nAChRs are expressed in diverse structures including the primary olfactory centres of the brain, the antennal lobes (AL) and the mushroom bodies. Whole-cell, voltage-clamp recordings were used to characterize the nAChRs present on cultured AL cells from adult honeybee, Apis mellifera. In 90% of the cells, applications of ACh induced fast inward currents that desensitized slowly. The classical nicotinic agonists nicotine and imidacloprid elicited respectively 45 and 43% of the maximum ACh-induced currents. The ACh-elicited currents were blocked by nicotinic antagonists methyllycaconitine, dihydroxy-β-erythroidine and α-bungarotoxin. The nAChRs on adult AL cells are cation permeable channels. Our data indicate the existence of functional nAChRs on adult AL cells that differ from nAChRs on pupal Kenyon cells from mushroom bodies by their pharmacological profile and ionic permeability, suggesting that these receptors could be implicated in different functions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank M. Moreau for help on ion permeability determination; M. Lambin, C. Armengaud, J. M. Devaud and J. C. Sandoz for suggestions on figures and manuscript; and M. Bazelot for kindly sharing cell cultures. G. S. Barbara was supported by a doctoral grant from the French Ministry of Scientific Research and Education. This work benefited from financial support of the European Community in the frame of the Apiculture Program 2007, Agreement 07–09 between Vinifhlor, CNRS and UPS.

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  1. Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale-CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 rte de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse, France

    Guillaume Stéphane Barbara, Sandrine Paute, Monique Gauthier & Valérie Raymond-Delpech

  2. Institut für Biologie AG Neurobiologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise Str. 28-30, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Bernd Grünewald

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  1. Guillaume Stéphane Barbara
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  2. Bernd Grünewald
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  5. Valérie Raymond-Delpech
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Correspondence to Valérie Raymond-Delpech.

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Barbara, G.S., Grünewald, B., Paute, S. et al. Study of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on cultured antennal lobe neurones from adult honeybee brains. Invert Neurosci 8, 19–29 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10158-007-0062-2

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