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Federated Department of Biological Sciences, NJIT and Rutgers-Newark

Tuesday, Febrary 20, 2007, 1:00pm
Life Science Center, 1st Floor
Rutgers-Newark

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Unanticipated roles for nicotinic receptors in development: survival, outgrowth, and synaptic regulation

Phyllis Pugh

Department of Biology
University of Toledo, College of Medicine

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are known to be abundant throughout the development of many neuronal populations, often prior to the elucidation of cholinergic synapses. What then are the roles that these early nAChRs play on these developing neurons? One clue might lie in the high calcium permeability of nAChRs, in partcular nAChRs that contain the alpha7 gene product and bind alpha-Bungarotoxin (aBgt-AChRs). Using primary neuronal cultures from the parasympathetic chick ciliary ganglion (CG) as a model system, our work has shown that activation of aBgt-AChRs can influence developmental events including cell survival/death, process outgrowth, and synapse formation. Each of these aspects will be discussed, well as prospects for future in vivo studies. These studies will aid in the understanding of the normal roles of these receptors and may shed light on aspects of neuronal development potentially impacted by maternal smoking.