Posted by denise190466 on August 29, 2005, at 10:58:07
Thought some of you might be interested in this.
Deep-sea microbe illuminates workings of human brain
The bowl-shaped structure of the glutamate transporter may be important in the development of new drugs for schizophrenia and depression.Reaching far down the evolutionary ladder, Eric Gouaux Ph.D., and his team of structural biologists have uncovered from a microbe the shape of a protein that is also used by human neurons to control cell-to-cell communication.
It is unclear what the protein does in microbes, but in human brains the protein acts like a molecular vacuum cleaner to clean up the synapse, the space between neurons that enables neurons to communicate. During neuron-to-neuron communication, one cell sends small neurotransmitters across the synapse to another cell. When the neurotransmitters are received, the "vacuum cleaner" proteins – called neurotransmitter transporters – prepare the synapse for the next message by quickly clearing any leftover molecules from the space.
Numerous brain disorders, including schizophrenia, epilepsy, and depression, stem from too many or too few neurotransmitters in the synapse, so the detailed picture of the synapse's neurotransmitter transporters may aid the development of new drugs. Some available drugs already hone in on these proteins, including antidepressants like Prozac, which block the serotonin transporter to increase the amount of serotonin in the synapse.
Dr. Gouaux, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, together with postdoctoral fellows Olga Boudker and Dinesh Yernool and senior technician Yan Jin, solved the structure of the glutamate transporter, one of several different types used by the brain. This is the first time a neurotransmitter transporter structure has been elucidated. The research appeared in the Oct. 14, 2004, issue of Nature.
This work is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the NIH.
—Susan Conova
poster:denise190466
thread:548107
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050827/msgs/548107.html