-
Neuroscience letters · Jul 2008
Tx3-4 a toxin from the venom of spider Phoneutria nigriventer blocks calcium channels associated with exocytosis.
- Célio José de Castro Junior, Ana Cristina N Pinheiro, Cristina Guatimosim, Marta N Cordeiro, Alessandra H Souza, Michael Richardson, Marco A Romano-Silva, Marco Antônio M Prado, and Marcus V Gomez.
- Departamento Farmacologia BeloHorizonte, MG, Brazil. celiojcjunior@yahoo.com.br
- Neurosci. Lett. 2008 Jul 11;439(2):170-2.
AbstractThe purpose of the present work was to investigate the pharmacological action of a calcium channel-blocking toxin from the venom of the spider Phonetic nigriventer, Tx3-4 on calcium channels coupled to exocytosis of synaptic vesicles. Tx3-4 blocked KCl-induced exocytosis of synaptic vesicles with an IC50 of 1.1 nM. To investigate whether the target of Tx3-4 overlaps with known calcium channels that mediate calcium entry and exocytosis, we used omega-toxins that interact selectively with neuronal calcium channels. The results indicate that the main population of voltage-sensitive calcium channels altered by Tx3-4 is P/Q calcium channels. In conclusion, Tx3-4 is a potent inhibitor of calcium channels involved in the KCl-induced exocytosis of synaptic vesicles in brain cortical synaptosomes.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..