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Regulation of intracellular calcium and preprotachykinin neurotransmitter precursor gene expression by patterned
M Hodaie1, P Jeevaratnam, M W Salter
1Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, Canada.
Abstract:
Experiments were performed to test several predictions of the hypothesis that activity pattern-dependent changes in intracellular free calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) might play a role in the translation of altered patterns of neuronal activity into changes in neurotransmitter gene expression. It was shown that (1) the Ca2+ channel blocker cadmium prevented depolarization-induced preprotachykinin-I (PPT-I) gene repression in rat sympathetic neurons; (2) the magnitudes of transient rises in [Ca2+]i were dependent upon the pattern in which a fixed number of depolarizing stimuli were delivered; and (3) stimulation at 10 Hz for 24 h did not repress PPT-I mRNA, while the same number of pulses delivered in 0.2 s bursts of 50 Hz caused a highly significant reduction to 30 +/- 2.5% of control levels.