The availability of an anti-nicotine monoclonal antibody has made it possible to further establish the nature of the nicotine recognition proteins purified from rat brain by affinity chromatography and to provide a highly sensitive assay for determining [ H]nicotine binding to the purified material.An enantiomeric analogue of nicotine, (-)-6-hydroxymethylnicotine, was used to prepare the affinity column. In addition, with the use of an anti-idiotypic monoclonal antibody, it was confirmed that the recognition site for nicotine resides on a protein complex composed of two components with molecular masses of 62 and 57 kDa. It was also demonstrated that the same two proteins could be purified by immunoaffinity chro- Although the nicotinic cholinergic receptors of the Torpedo electric organ and mammalian neuromuscular junction are similar in their molecular characteristics (see ref. 1 for review), the nature of the nicotinic site in mammalian brain and its relationship to the peripheral receptor remains problematical. A number of studies have described limited crossreactivity between antibodies against the electric organ and an a-bungarotoxin-binding site in rat brain (2-4); however, neither receptor-binding studies using [3H]nicotine and 3H-labeled cholinergic agents as ligands nor behavioral and electrophysiological studies indicate any similarity in the a-bungarotoxin and nicotine sites in rat brain. Recently, a monoclonal antibody (mAb) prepared against purified nicotinic receptors from chicken brain has been used to isolate, by immunoaffinity chromatography, a nicotinic receptor from rat brain (4). The receptor complex, which was composed of two proteins having molecular masses of 51 and 79 kDa, differs somewhat from a nicotine-binding complex purified by affinity chromatography using a nicotine analogue conjugated to epoxy-Sepharose (5).The present communication describes further studies on the characterization of the nicotinic receptor purified by affinity chromatography by making use of idiotypic mAbs (6) to nicotine as well as their anti-idiotypes.
MATERIALS AND METHODSPreparation of Rat Brain Membranes. After adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were sacrificed by spinal dislocation, the whole brains were removed, washed, and homogenized with a Brinkmann Polytron in 20 vol of ice-cold 0.05 M sodium phosphate, pH 7.5. The membrane pellet obtained after centrifugation at 50,000 x g for 30 min was washed once, recentrifuged, and stored at -