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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1990 Jun;87(11):4073–4077. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.11.4073

Protein kinase C activity is not responsible for the expression of long-term potentiation in hippocampus.

D Muller 1, P A Buchs 1, Y Dunant 1, G Lynch 1
PMCID: PMC54049  PMID: 2161529

Abstract

Long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampus has been proposed to result from a tonic activation of protein kinase C. This hypothesis predicts that stimulation of the kinase would produce a smaller change in response size on potentiated versus control pathways and, conversely, that inhibition of the kinase would reduce potentiated inputs to a greater degree than control responses. We tested these predictions using phorbol esters to activate and using the antagonist H-7 to inhibit protein kinase C; we found that the actions of these drugs on synaptic transmission were not affected by prior induction of LTP. Both compounds, however, significantly decreased the contribution of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors to synaptic potentials, a result that accounts for the suppressive effects of these compounds on LTP formation. Thus protein kinase C is probably not involved in the expression of LTP but may play a role in the receptor-mediated events participating in its induction.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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