title: Early events of chemical transmission of newly formed neuromuscular junctions in monolayers of human muscle cells co-cultured with fetal rat spinal cord explants.
abstract: Early events of chemical transmission were examined in our newly established heterotypic co-culture system with human muscle in monolayer and fetal rat spinal cord explants with attached dorsal root ganglia. The mean amplitude, frequency, rise time and half-fall time of miniature end-plate potentials (MEPPs) were 1.04 mV, 3.9/s, 6.1 ms and 54.9 ms, respectively. Time intervals between successive MEPPs were exponentially distributed. Stimulus evoked potentials were successfully obtained. The distribution of stimulus evoked end-plate potential (EPP) amplitudes was approximately equal to a Poisson distribution. This is the first report concerning intracellular recordings of chemical transmission of developing neuromuscular junctions in heterotypic co-culture system using human muscle. In this co-culture system, the heterotypic neuromuscular junctions show significant similarities previously to those observed in nerve-muscle tissues co-cultured from the same species as well as immature nerve-muscle synapses in situ.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Michikawa
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tsukagoshi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001706:Biopsy; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005333:Fetus; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008875:Middle Aged; D009045:Motor Endplate / Q000502:physiology*; D009132:Muscles / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009468:Neuromuscular Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009469:Neuromuscular Junction / Q000502:physiology*; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques; D051381:Rats; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000502:physiology*