α-Conotoxins
α-Conotoxins (α-CgTxs) are a family of Cys-enriched peptides found in several marine snails from the genus Conus. These small peptides behave pharmacologically as competitive antagonists of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR). The data indicate that (1) α-CgTxs are able to discriminate betwe...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2000 |
| País: | Argentina |
| Institución: | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas |
| Repositorio: | CONICET Digital (CONICET) |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/78993 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/11336/78993 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Α-Conotoxins Competitive Antagonists Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors https://purl.org/becyt/ford/3.1 https://purl.org/becyt/ford/3 |
| Sumario: | α-Conotoxins (α-CgTxs) are a family of Cys-enriched peptides found in several marine snails from the genus Conus. These small peptides behave pharmacologically as competitive antagonists of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR). The data indicate that (1) α-CgTxs are able to discriminate between muscle- and neuronal-type AChRs and even among distinct AChR subtypes; (2) the binding sites for α-CgTxs are located, like other cholinergic ligands, at the interface of α and non-α subunits (γ, δ, and ε for the muscle-type AChR, and β for several neuronal-type AChRs); (3) some α-CgTxs differentiate the high- from the low-affinity binding site found on either α/non-α subunit interface; and that (4) specific residues in the cholinergic binding site are energetically coupled with their corresponding pairs in the toxin stabilizing the α-CgTx-AChR complex. The α-CgTxs have proven to be excellent probes for studying the structure and function of the AChR family. |
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