TY  - JOUR
ID  - discovery1485205
N2  - Dysfunctional glycinergic inhibitory transmission underlies the debilitating neurological condition, hyperekplexia, which is characterised by exaggerated startle reflexes, muscle hypertonia and apnoea. Here we investigated the N46K missense mutation in the GlyR ?1 subunit gene found in the ethylnitrosourea (ENU) murine mutant, Nmf11, which causes reduced body size, evoked tremor, seizures, muscle stiffness, and morbidity by postnatal day 21. Introducing the N46K mutation into recombinant GlyR ?1 homomeric receptors, expressed in HEK cells, reduced the potencies of glycine, ?-alanine and taurine by 9-, 6- and 3-fold respectively, and that of the competitive antagonist strychnine by 15-fold. Replacing N46 with hydrophobic, charged or polar residues revealed that the amide moiety of asparagine was crucial for GlyR activation. Co-mutating N61, located on a neighbouring ? loop to N46, rescued the wild-type phenotype depending on the amino acid charge. Single-channel recording identified that burst length for the N46K mutant was reduced and fast agonist application revealed faster glycine deactivation times for the N46K mutant compared with the WT receptor. Overall, these data are consistent with N46 ensuring correct alignment of the ?1 subunit interface by interaction with juxtaposed residues to preserve the structural integrity of the glycine binding site. This represents a new mechanism by which GlyR dysfunction induces startle disease.
SN  - 1469-7793
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1113/JP272122
JF  - The Journal of Physiology
A1  - Wilkins, ME
A1  - Caley, A
A1  - Gielen, MC
A1  - Harvey, RJ
A1  - Smart, TG
TI  - Murine startle mutant Nmf11 affects the structural stability of the glycine receptor and increases deactivation
EP  - 3607
AV  - public
Y1  - 2016/07/01/
VL  - 594
SP  - 3589
N1  - © 2016 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Physiological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
IS  - 13
ER  -