Neurons cholinergic

Acetylcholine serves as a neurotransmitter. Removal of acetylcholine within the time limits of the synaptic transmission is accomplished by acetylcholinesterase (AChE). The time required for hydrolysis of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction is less than a millisecond (turnover time is 150 ps) such that one molecule of AChE can hydrolyze 6 105 acetylcholine molecules per minute. The Km of AChE for acetylcholine is approximately 50-100 pM. AChE is one of the most efficient enzymes known. It works at a rate close to catalytic perfection where substrate diffusion becomes rate limiting. AChE is expressed in cholinergic neurons and muscle cells where it is found attached to the outer surface of the cell membrane. 

Acetylcholine is synthesised in nerve terminals from its precursor choline, which is not formed in the CNS but transported there in free form in the blood. It is found in many foods such as egg yolk, liver and vegetables although it is also produced in the liver and its brain concentration rises after meals. Choline is taken up into the cytoplasm by a high-affinity (Am = 1-5 pM), saturable, uptake which is Na+ and ATP dependent and while it does not appear to occur during the depolarisation produced by high concentrations of potassium it is increased by neuronal activity and is specific to cholinergic nerves. A separate low-affinity uptake, or diffusion (Am = 50 pM), which is linearly related to choline concentration and not saturable, is of less interest since it is not specific to cholinergic neurons. 

Low concentrations of solubilised jS-albumin inhibit ACh release in slices from rat hippocampus and cortex areas which show degeneration in AzD, but not in slices from the striatum which is unaffected. While not totally specific to ACh, since some inhibition of NA and DA and potentiation of glutamate release have been reported, this effect is achieved at concentrations of A/i below those generally neurotoxic. Since jS-amyloid can inhibit choline uptake it is also possible (see Auld, Kar and Quiron 1998) that in order to obtain sufficient choline for ACh synthesis and the continued function of cholinergic neurons, a breakdown of membrane phosphatidyl choline is required leading to cell death (so-called autocannibalism), /i-amyloid can also reduce the secondary effects of Mi receptor activation such as GTPase activity... 

Of course, cholinergic neurons are not the only ones with axon terminals in the cortex and if their degeneration does originate in the cortex then other afferants and their neurons could also be affected. This contention is supported by reported reductions in the number of NA neurons in the locus coeruleus, and 5-HT neurons in dorsal raphe but these are less marked (approximately 50%) than the loss of cholinergic neurons. Accompanying reductions in cortical NA and 5-HT are also seen but are again lower than those for ChAT but 5-HT2 receptors are reduced (43%). 

Among a number of peptides studied it is only the reduction of somatostatin in the temporal, parietal and frontal cortices that correlates with the severity of dementia in AzD, although corticotrophin-releasing factor is lower. Reductions in somatostatin do not generally parallel those of ChAT, its concentration being almost normal in the hippocampus and nucleus basalis, where ChAT levels are lowest and there is no evidence that it is localised in cholinergic neurons. 

Danik M, Puma C, Quirion R, et al. Widely expressed transcripts for chemokine receptor CXCR1 in identified glutamatergic, gamma-aminobutyric acidergic, and cholinergic neurons and astrocytes of the rat brain a single-cell reverse transcription-multiplex polymerase chain reaction study. J Neurosci Res 2003 74 286-295. 

Bouijeily N, Suszkiw JB. 1997. Developmental cholinotoxicity of lead loss of septal cholinergic neurons and long-term changes in cholinergic innervation of the hippocampus in perinatally lead-exposed rats. Brain Res 771(2) 319-328. 

The development of antibodies against ChAT allowed the distribution of neurons producing acetylcholine in the nervous system to be revealed (Mesulam et al., 1983 Armstrong et al., 1983 Jones Beaudet, 1987 Vincent Reiner, 1987). In the context of control of wakefulness and REM sleep two groups of cholinergic neurons are of primary importance. Neurons located in the basal forebrain and medial septum provide the cholinergic innervation of the cerebral... 

Cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain and medial septum selectively express the low affinity (p75) receptor for nerve growth factor which allows them... 

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