Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (2009) 30: 818-827; doi: 10.1038/aps.2009.54

Aim: Studies of the α7-type neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR), one of the receptor forms involved in many physiologically relevant processes in the central nervous system, have been hampered by the inability of this homomeric protein to assemble in most heterologous expression systems.  In a recent study, it was shown that the chaperone Ric-3 is necessary for the maturation and functional expression of α7-type AChRs^[1].  The current work aims at obtaining and characterizing a cell line with high functional expression of the human α7 AChR.

Methods: Ric-3 cDNA was incorporated into SHE-P1-hα7 cells expressing the α7-type AChR.  Functional studies were undertaken using single-channel patch-clamp recordings.  Equilibrium and kinetic [¹²⁵I]α-bungarotoxin binding assays, as well as fluorescence microscopy using fluorescent α-bungarotoxin, anti-α7 antibody, and GFP-α7 were performed on the new clone. 

Results: The human α7-type AChR was stably expressed in a new cell line, which we coined SHE-P1-hα7-Ric-3, by co-expression of the chaperone Ric-3.  Cell-surface AChRs exhibited [¹²⁵I]αBTX saturable binding with an apparent K_D of about 55 nmol/L.  Fluorescence microscopy revealed dispersed and micro-clustered AChR aggregates at the surface of SHE-P1-hα7-Ric-3 cells.  Larger micron-sized clusters were observed in the absence of receptor-clustering proteins or upon aggregation with anti-α7 antibodies.  In contrast, chaperone-less SHE-P1-hα7 cells expressed only intracellular α7 AChRs and failed to produce detectable single-channel currents.

Conclusion: The production of a stable and functional cell line of neuroepithelial lineage with robust cell-surface expression of neuronal α7-type AChR, as reported here, constitutes an important advance in the study of homomeric receptors in mammalian cells.

Keywords: neuronal receptor; cholinergic chaperone; membrane protein expression