Development of a high-affinity GABA uptake system in embryonic amphibian spinal neurons

High-affinity uptake systems for amino acid neurotransmitter precursors have been highly correlated with the use of the particular amino acid or its derivative as a transmitter. We have found interneurons in the Xenopus embryo spinal cord which accumulate GABA by a high-affinity uptake system. They originate near the end of gastrulation and their ability to accumulate GABA first appears at the early tail bud stage. By position and appearance they are comparable to some of the embryonic interneurons described by A. Roberts and J. D. W. Clarke (1982, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 296, 195-212). GABA-accumulating neurons also develop in dissociated cell cultures made from the presumptive spinal cord of neural plate stage Xenopus embryos. GABA accumulation in cultured neurons, as in cells in vivo, occurs via a high-affinity uptake system; GABA-accumulating cells have the same time of origin as the cells in vivo, and the ability to accumulate GABA in the population of cultured neurons appears at a time equivalent to that observed in intact sibling embryos. Thus it seems likely that the population of GABA-accumulating neurons developing in cell culture corresponds to the GABA-accumulating interneurons in vivo. The development of these neurons in dissociated cell cultures permits perturbation experiments that would be difficult to perform in vivo. We have examined the development of high-affinity GABA uptake in conditions that permit no electrical impulse activity in the cultures. The onset and extent of development of GABA accumulation in the neuronal population are normal under these conditions.