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Tonic GABA secretion of cultured rat hippocampal neurons rapidly transformed by Zn 2+ into quantal release

Neuroscience Letters, ISSN: 0304-3940, Vol: 158, Issue: 2, Page: 125-129
1993
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Article Description

Different mechanisms of neurotransmitter secretion at synapses have been ascribed to quantal, transient signals [4–9] and to continuous, tonic activity [11, 21, 25]. Quantal transmission is imputed to be the release of transmitter packets, or quanta [6], assembled and stored in vesicles present in presynaptic terminals [2, 8]. We report that 300 μM Zn 2+ rapidly transformed tonic Cl − conductance mediated by the transmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) into transient synaptic-like signals. After addition of Zn 2+, the size of the elementary fluctuations in the Cl − current progressively increased while randomly activated Cl − channel kinetics remained unchanged and accounted for the bi-exponential time course of average transient decay. The results suggest that Zn 2+ rapidly transforms tonic GABA secretion into quantal-like transient release.

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