The Pharmacology of Nerve and Muscle in Tissue Culture

ISBN-13: 9781468488128 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 252 str.

Alan L. Harvey

Opis

The techniques of tissue culture were introduced at the beginning of this century. They have become more and more popular as it is realized that they are not as difficult or as esoteric as some early protagonists liked to maintain. Most of the work performed with culture methods has simply concerned cell growth and survival. Biologists have long used culture approaches to provide a simple system in which to study cell division and multiplication. Any pharmacology done on cultured tissue was largely toxicological or as part of a screening programme for poten- tial anti-cancer drugs. In the last decade there has been a great increase in the use of excitable cells in tissue culture. Nerves and muscles from a wide variety of sources can maintain their highly differentiated properties in culture. Such cultures offer an attractive preparation for use in physiological and pharmacological investigations. Consequently, a vast amount of work has been produced, and this book is an attempt to review it. It is hoped that this will introduce physiologists and pharmacologists to the potential of culture methods for their experiments and also indicate to more traditional tissue culture users further possible areas of interest. By being more comprehensive in scope and by trying to concentrate largely on drug actions, I hope that the present volume usefully extends the treatment of the subject begun earlier in the excellent works by Crain (1976) and Nelson and Lieberman (1981).

Spis treści

1. An Introduction to Tissue Culture and its Use in the Study of Nerve and Muscle.- What is tissue culture?.- Development of tissue culture.- General advantages of tissue culture.- Recording techniques.- Present interests and future directions.- 2. Nerve Cells in Primary Culture.- Types of culture and methodology.- Electrical properties and drugs acting on ion channels.- Passive membrane properties.- Action potentials and drugs acting on ion channels.- Receptor properties.- Acetylcholine receptors.- Monoamine receptors.- Amino acid neurotransmitters.- Peptides.- 3. Neural Cell Lines.- Electrical properties.- Na+ Channels.- Ca2+ Channels.- K+ Channels.- Receptor properties.- Acetylcholine receptors.- Monoamine receptors.- Opiate receptors.- Prostaglandin receptors.- Adenosine receptors.- 4. Skeletal Muscle.- Electrical properties and drugs acting on ion channels.- Passive membrane properties.- Action potentials and drugs acting on ion channels.- Acetylcholine receptors.- Development of acetylcholine receptors.- Receptor turnover.- Functional properties of acetylcholine receptors.- Pharmacological properties of acetylcholine receptors.- 5. Cardiac Muscle.- Development of methods.- Electrical properties and drugs acting on ion channels.- Action potentials.- Drug actions on ion channels.- Acetylcholine receptors.- Affinity for agonists and antagonists.- Density, distribution and turnover of receptors.- Mechanism of action of acetylcholine.- Noradrenaline receptors.- Specificity and affinity.- Mechanism of action of noradrenaline.- Modulation of adrenoceptors by hormones.- 6. Smooth Muscle.- Culture methods.- Explants and subcultures.- Dissociated cell cultures.- Electrophysiological studies.- Pharmacological studies.- 7. Synapses and Neuromuscular Junctions in Culture.- Synapses in cultures of the central nervous system.- Brain tissue.- Spinal cord.- Synapses in cultures of the peripheral nervous system.- Explants.- Dissociated cell cultures.- Neuromuscular junctions.- Skeletal muscle.- Autonomic neuromuscular junctions.- References.