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. 1999 May 11;96(10):5746–5751. doi: 10.1073/pnas.96.10.5746

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Altered profile of ACh-elicited single-channel currents in SCG neurons in α3-deficient mice. The SCG neurons from +/+ mice express five conductance classes of nAChRs. In contrast, the SCG neurons from −/− mice display many fewer channel openings which contribute to only two well-defined conductance classes. (a) Sample traces of ACh-gated single-channel currents in cell attached patches (membrane holding potential +50 mV) demonstrated that the +/+ mice expressed both more channel openings and openings of longer duration than the −/− mice. (b) Amplitude analysis of +/+ SCG neurons indicated that there were five amplitude classes (γ1+/+ ≈ 9 pS, γ2+/+ ≈ 18 pS, γ3+/+ ≈ 25 pS, γ4+/+ ≈ 35 pS, and γ5+/+ ≈ 41 pS; 3,148 events pooled from four cells). In contrast, amplitude analysis of −/− SCG neurons revealed only two well defined conductance classes (γ1−/− ≈ 18 pS and γ2−/− ≈ 25 pS; 2,185 events pooled from nine cells). (c) Kinetic analysis of the 18-pS and 25-pS channel classes from both +/+ and −/− mice showed that the fast components of both classes were similar in the +/+ and −/− mice. However, the +/+ channels each contained two longer-duration components that were missing from the −/− classes. Mean τ values ± SEM are reported in the text.