Glutamate and GABA

Question 1

Fill in the blanks for the Glutamate Biochemical Pathway

Answer 1

A. Glutaminase

B. Vesicular Glut transporter (VGLUT)

C. EAAT3

D. EAAT1/EAAT2

E. Glutamine synthetase

F. Glutamine transports

Question 2

Fill in the blanks for the GABA biosynthetic pathways

Answer 2

A. Glutamic acid decarboxylase

B. GAT-1

C. GAT-1,-2,-3

D. GABA aminotransferase

E. Glutamine transporters

Question 3

What are the 3 Glutamate Receptors?

Hint: They are all ionotropic and 2 of the 3 behaves similarly.

Also, they are all nonspecific ion channels but Na+ is the dominant ion

Also, one receptor is often called coincidence detectors

Answer 3

AMPA and Kainate behaves similar, only need one event to open the pore

NMDA

ligand and voltage-gated, need two events to happen to open (binding of the ligand (physically open) and depolarization ( functionally open)

Mg2+ blocks the open channel

Question 4

True or False: GABAa receptor bind sites are ubiquitous inhibitors due to Cl- entering , they contain 5 subunits, and have a tons of bind sites

Answer 4

True

Question 5

What is excitotoxicity?

Also, what are the two cellular pathways of excitotoxicity? What Glutamate receptors mediate which pathway?

Answer 5

Excitotoxicity is the damage of the cell or cell death mediated by the action of Glutamate

The cellular pathways are

Necrosis, mediated by AMPA and Kinase, quick onset, creates an osmotic gradient for swelling (lysis)

Apoptosis mediated by NDMA the primary mechanism is Ca2+ influx the change of gene expression trigger “suicide” gene

Question 6

Glutamate produced an irreversible change to a cell that we categorize as damahe that is long term potentiation (cellular model of learning). LTP increases synaptic strength which leads to learning.

How do we model LTP?

Answer 6