The human CHRNA5 D398N polymorphism (rs16969968) causes an aspartic acid to asparagine change in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) α5 subunit gene. The N398 variant of CHRNA5 is linked to increased risk for nicotine dependence. In this study, we explored the effect of the CHRNA5 D398N polymorphism on the properties of human α3β4* nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells. Addition of either D398 or N398 variant of α5 subunit in the α3β4* receptor did not affect total [125I]-epibatidine binding or surface expression of the receptor. However, addition of α5D398 into α3β4* receptor decreased the maximal response to agonist without significantly affecting EC50 in aequorin intracellular calcium assay. α3β4α5N398 nAChRs showed further decreased maximal response. The differences in agonist efficacy between the receptor subtypes were found to be dependent upon the concentration of external calcium but independent of external sodium. Moreover, activation of α3β4α5 nAChRs led to significantly greater intracellular calcium release from IP3 stores relative to α3β4 nAChRs although no effect of the α5 polymorphism was observed. Finally, inclusion of the α5 variant caused a small shift to the left in IC50 for some of the antagonists tested, depending upon α5 variant but did not affect sensitivity of α3β4* receptors to desensitization in response to incubation with nicotine. In conclusion, addition of either variant of a5 into an α3β4α5 receptor similarly effects receptor pharmacology and function. However, the N398 variant exhibits a reduced response to agonists when extracellular calcium is high and it may lead to distinct downstream cellular signaling.

Potentiating neuroactive steroids are potent and efficacious modulators of the GABA A receptor that act by allosterically enhancing channel activation elicited by GABA. Steroids interact with the membrane-spanning domains of the ␣ subunits of the receptor, whereas GABA binds to pockets in the interfaces between ␤ and ␣ subunits. Steroid interaction with a single site is known to be sufficient to produce potentiation, but it is not clear whether effects within the same ␤-␣ pair mediate potentiation. Here, we have investigated whether the sites for GABA and steroids are functionally linked (i.e., whether the occupancy of a steroid site selectively affects activation elicited by GABA binding to the transmitter binding site within the same ␤-␣ pair). For that, we used receptors formed of mutated concatenated subunits to selectively eliminate one of the two GABA sites and one of the two steroid sites. The data demonstrate that receptors containing a single functional GABA site are potentiated by the neurosteroid allopregnanolone regardless of whether the steroid interacts with the ␣ subunit from the same or the other ␤-␣ pair. We conclude that steroids potentiate the opening of the GABA A receptor induced by either agonist binding site.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Accordingly, effort has been devoted to determining the genetic variants that contribute to smoking risk. Genome-wide association studies have identified several variants in nicotinic acetylcholine receptor genes that contribute to nicotine dependence risk. We previously undertook pooled sequencing of the coding regions and flanking sequence of the CHRNA5, CHRNA3, CHRNB4, CHRNA6 and CHRNB3 genes and found that rare missense variants at conserved residues in CHRNB4 are associated with reduced risk of nicotine dependence among African Americans. We identified 10 low frequency (<5%) non-synonymous variants in CHRNB4 and investigated functional effects by co-expression with normal α3 or α4 subunits in human embryonic kidney cells. Voltage-clamp was used to obtain acetylcholine and nicotine concentration–response curves and qRT-PCR, western blots and cell-surface ELISAs were performed to assess expression levels. These results were used to functionally weight genetic variants in a gene-based association test. We find that there is a highly significant correlation between carrier status weighted by either acetylcholine EC50 (β = −0.67, r2 = 0.017, P = 2×10−4) or by response to low nicotine (β = −0.29, r2 = 0.02, P = 6×10−5) when variants are expressed with the α3 subunit. In contrast, there is no significant association when carrier status is unweighted (β = −0.04, r2 = 0.0009, P = 0.54). These results highlight the value of functional analysis of variants and the advantages to integrating such data into genetic studies. They also suggest that an increased sensitivity to low concentrations of nicotine is protective from the risk of developing nicotine dependence.