Naturally expressed nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) containing α4 subunits (α4 * -nAChR) in combination with β2 subunits (α4β2-nAChR) are among the most abundant, high-affinity nicotine binding sites in the mammalian brain. β4 subunits are also richly expressed and colocalize with α4 subunits in several brain regions implicated in behavioural responses to nicotine and nicotine dependence. Thus, α4β4-nAChR also may exist and play important functional roles. In this study, properties were determined of human α4β2-and α4β4-nAChR heterologously expressed de novo in human SH-EP1 epithelial cells. Whole-cell currents mediated via human α4β4-nAChR have ∼4-fold higher amplitude than those mediated via human α4β2-nAChR and exhibit much slower acute desensitization and functional rundown. Nicotinic agonists induce peak whole-cell current responses typically with higher functional potency at α4β4-nAChR than at α4β2-nAChR. Cytisine and lobeline serve as full agonists at α4β4-nAChR but are only partial agonists at α4β2-nAChR. However, nicotinic antagonists, except hexamethonium, have comparable affinities for functional α4β2-and α4β4-nAChR. Whole-cell current responses show stronger inward rectification for α4β2-nAChR than for α4β4-nAChR at a positive holding potential. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that human nAChR β2 or β4 subunits can combine with α4 subunits to generate two forms of α4 * -nAChR with distinctive physiological and pharmacological features. Diversity in α4 * -nAChR is of potential relevance to nervous system function, disease, and nicotine dependence.

A B S T R A C T The cholinergic agonists acetylcholine (ACh), nicotine, and pilocarpine produced depolarizations and contractions of muscle of the nematode Ascaris suum. Dose-dependent depolarization and contraction by ACh were suppressed by about two orders of magnitude by 100 ~M d-tubocurarine (dTC), a nicotinic antagonist, but only about fivefold by 100 p-M N-methyl-scopolamine (NMS), a muscarinic antagonist. NMS itself depolarized both normal and synaptically isolated muscle cells. The muscle depolarizing action of pilocarpine was not consistently antagonized by either NMS or dTC. ACh receptors were detected on motorneuron classes DE 1, DE2, DI, and VI as ACh-induced reductions in input resistance. These input resistance changes were reversed by washing in drug-free saline or by application of dTC. NMS applied alone lowered input resistance in DEI, but not in DE2, DI, or VI motorneurons. In contrast to the effect of ACh, the action of NMS in DE1 was not reversed by dTC, suggesting that NMS-sensitive sites may not respond to ACh. Excitatory synaptic responses in muscle evoked by depolarizing current injections into DE1 and DE2 motorneurons were antagonized by dTC; however, NMS antagonized the synaptic output of only the DE1 and DE3 classes of motorneurons, an effect that was more likely to have been produced by motorneuron conduction failure than by pharmacological blockade of receptor. The concentration of NMS required to produce these changes in muscle polarization and contraction, ACh antagonism, input resistance reduction, and synaptic antagonism was 100 p,M, or more than five orders of magnitude higher than the binding affinity for [3H]NMS in larval Ascaris homogenates and adult Caenorhabditis elegans (Segerberg, M. A. 1989. Ph.D. thesis. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI). These results describe a nicotinic-like pharmacology, but muscle and motorneurons also have unusual responses to muscarinic agents.