C. Dettbarn et al., MANY AGONISTS INDUCE QUANTAL CA2-BEHAVIOR IN MUSCLE RYANODINE RECEPTORS( RELEASE OR ADAPTIVE), Molecular pharmacology, 46(3), 1994, pp. 502-507
Ryanodine receptors have recently been shown to undergo an unusual kin
d of inactivation process termed adaptation, which bears similarities
to the transient calcium releases induced in other systems by successi
ve incremental additions of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate. Such release
s are sometimes termed ''quantal.'' In this study we report that many
agonists induce similar behavior in muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum and
that the responses depend not on the calcium pumps therein but rather
on the ryanodine receptors; The chemical diversity of these agonists m
akes it very unlikely that adaptation simply affects the sensitivity o
f the receptor to agonists at any one binding site. More likely, this
result indicates that adaptive behavior of ryanodine receptors results
whenever the ryanodine receptor is activated and that this process af
fects the action of most, if not all, agonists. Evidence is presented
suggesting that the releases observed do not represent all-or-none rel
eases from vesicle subpopulations (true quantal behavior) but rather s
eem to involve partial release from more homogeneously sensitive store
s, a process referred to here as adaptation or increment detection.