Novel animal-health drug targets from ligand-gated chloride channels.
The world's three best-selling veterinary antiparasitic drugs ('parasiticides') act on ligand-gated ion channels. The sequencing of the complete genomes of the invertebrate genetic model organisms Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster has led to the recent cloning of new subunits of 5-hydroxytryptamine-gated and histamine-gated chloride channels. Together with L-glutamate-gated chloride channels, which are important targets of known parasiticides, and acetylcholine-gated chloride channels, these new classes of ligand-gated chloride channels, which are known only from invertebrates, add to our understanding of inhibitory neural signalling. They could offer the prospect of being targets for a new generation of selective drugs to control nematode and insect parasites.
MRC Functional Genetics Unit, Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QX, UK.
Valérie
V
Raymond
David B
DB
Sattelle
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000820:Animal Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*; D000818:Animals; D000977:Antiparasitic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018118:Chloride Channels / Q000737:chemistry / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D015640:Ion Channel Gating; D008024:Ligands; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents / Q000502:physiology; D021122:Protein Subunits
D000977:Antiparasitic Agents; D018118:Chloride Channels; D008024:Ligands; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents; D021122:Protein Subunits