title: Transport mechanisms in acetylcholine and monoamine storage.
abstract: Sequence-related vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) and vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT) transport neurotransmitter substrates into secretory vesicles. This review seeks to identify shared and differentiated aspects of the transport mechanisms. VAChT and VMAT exchange two protons per substrate molecule with very similar initial velocity kinetics and pH dependencies. However, vesicular gradients of ACh in vivo are much smaller than the driving force for uptake and vesicular gradients of monoamines, suggesting the existence of a regulatory mechanism in ACh storage not found in monoamine storage. The importance of microscopic rather than macroscopic kinetics in structure-function analysis is described. Transporter regions affecting binding or translocation of substrates, inhibitors, and protons have been found with photoaffinity labeling, chimeras, and single-site mutations. VAChT and VMAT exhibit partial structural and mechanistic homology with lactose permease, which belongs to the same sequence-defined superfamily, despite opposite directions of substrate transport. The vesicular transporters translocate the first proton using homologous aspartates in putative transmembrane domain X (ten), but they translocate the second proton using unknown residues that might not be conserved between them. Comparative analysis of the VAChT and VMAT transport mechanisms will aid understanding of regulation in neurotransmitter storage.
authors: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. parsons@chem.ucsb.edu
authors: S M
authors: SM
authors: Parsons
mesh_terms: D000109:Acetylcholine / Q000378:metabolism*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D015306:Biogenic Monoamines / Q000378:metabolism*; D001692:Biological Transport; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism*; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism*; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009479:Neuropeptides; D013816:Thermodynamics; D050494:Vesicular Acetylcholine Transport Proteins; D050492:Vesicular Biogenic Amine Transport Proteins; D050493:Vesicular Monoamine Transport Proteins; D033921:Vesicular Transport Proteins
chemical_list: D015306:Biogenic Monoamines; D002352:Carrier Proteins; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009479:Neuropeptides; D050494:Vesicular Acetylcholine Transport Proteins; D050492:Vesicular Biogenic Amine Transport Proteins; D050493:Vesicular Monoamine Transport Proteins; D033921:Vesicular Transport Proteins; D000109:Acetylcholine