Glutamate receptors at atomic resolution

At synapses throughout the brain and spinal cord, the amino-acid glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter. During evolution, a family of glutamate-receptor ion channels seems to have been assembled from a kit consisting of discrete ligand-binding, ion-channel, modulatory and cytoplasmic do...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNature Vol. 440; no. 7083; pp. 456 - 462
Main Author Mayer, Mark L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Nature Publishing Group 23.03.2006
Subjects
Allosteric Regulation
Amino Acid Sequence
Amino acids
Animals
Brain
Crystallography
Evolution
Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists - metabolism
Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists - pharmacology
Forecasting
Glutamic Acid - genetics
Glutamic Acid - metabolism
Humans
Ion Channels - chemistry
Ion Channels - metabolism
Ions
Ligands
Molecular Sequence Data
Neurodegenerative Diseases - metabolism
Neurotransmitters
Receptors, AMPA - chemistry
Receptors, AMPA - metabolism
Receptors, Glutamate - chemistry
Receptors, Glutamate - metabolism
Spinal cord
Structural analysis
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Summary:At synapses throughout the brain and spinal cord, the amino-acid glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter. During evolution, a family of glutamate-receptor ion channels seems to have been assembled from a kit consisting of discrete ligand-binding, ion-channel, modulatory and cytoplasmic domains. Crystallographic studies that exploit this unique architecture have greatly aided structural analysis of the ligand-binding core, but the results also pose a formidable challenge, namely that of resolving the allosteric mechanisms by which individual domains communicate and function in an intact receptor.
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ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4679
DOI:10.1038/nature04709