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.
Raymond
Valérie
V
MRC Functional Genetics Unit, Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QX, UK.
Sattelle
David B
DB
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