An extracellular scaffolding complex confers unusual rectification upon an ionotropic acetylcholine receptor in C. elegans.

ABSTRACT: Biophysical properties of ligand-gated receptors can be profoundly modified by auxiliary subunits or by the lipid microenvironment of the membrane. Hence, it is sometimes challenging to relate the properties of receptors reconstituted in heterologous expression systems to those of their native counterparts. Here we show that the properties of Caenorhabditis elegans levamisole-sensitive acetylcholine receptors (L-AChRs), the ionotropic acetylcholine receptors targeted by the cholinergic anthelmintic levamisole at neuromuscular junctions, can be profoundly modified by their clustering machinery. We uncovered that L-AChRs exhibit a strong outward rectification in vivo, which was not previously described in heterologous systems. This unusual feature for an ionotropic AChR is abolished b

SUBMITTER: Jospin M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9304021 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature