Browsing by Author "Dunina-Barkovskaja, Antonina"

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Open Access
Arachidonovaja kislota obratimo blokiruet vysokopronicaemye mežkletočnye kontakty
(1994) Hülser, Dieter F.; Zempel, Günther; Reuss, Bernhard; Suhr, Dierk; Sarovskaja, Julija J.; Murav'eva, O. V.; Dunina-Barkovskaja, Antonina; Margolis, Leonid B.
The effect of arachidonic on intercellular coupling via gap junctions has been studied in BICR/M1R k cells - a mammary tumor cell line of the Marshall ratt. Arachidonic acid is shown to reversibly block both ionic and dye coupling in a dose-dependent manner. The cells recoupled after the washout with either serum- or albumin (essentially fatty acid-free)-containing solution. The intercellular pH decreased from 7,2 to 7,0 after arachidonic acid treatment; the same pH shift in the absence of arachidonic acid, however, had no effect on the junctional permeability. Flow cytometric measurments revealed an arachidonic acid-induced increase of the cytoplasmic free Ca 2+ concentration which was also reversible upon albumin treatment. Intracellular Ca 2+ or H+ are unlikely to be involved in the mechanism of the arachidonic acid effect on intercellular coupling: high resolution measurments using double whole-cell technique also show reversible blockage of the junctional conductance in the presence of arachidonic acid while the pipette solution was buffered with 10 mM HEPES and 10 mM EGTA to clamp intracellular calcium and proton concentrations. We suggest that arachiconic acid directly affects the gap junction channels, probably interfering with the lipid-protein interactions.
Open Access
Biophysical characterization of gap-junction channels in HeLa cells
(1993) Eckert, Reiner; Dunina-Barkovskaja, Antonina; Hülser, Dieter F.
HeLa cells seem not to be junctionally coupled when probed with techniques such as Lucifer yellow spreading and/or ionic coupling measured with three inserted microelectrodes. When investigated with double whole-cell patch-clamp measurements, HeLa cells in monolayer cultures were electrically coupled in 39% of the cases with very low transjunctional conductances (average one to five open channels). These gapjunction channels had a single-channel conductance γ=26±6 pS and were voltage-gated with an equivalent gating charge ζ=3.1±1.5 for a voltage of half-maximal inactivation Uo=49±10 mV. The voltage-dependent component represents only 31±8% of the total junctional conductance. The voltage-insensitive conductance is characterized by a residual open probability po(∞)=0.34±0.12, which corresponds to a ratio Gmin/Gmax=0.50±0.12. Dissociation of monolayer cells into cell pairs yielded about 58% coupled cell pairs with no notably altered single-channel properties.
Open Access
Patch-clamp measurements of gap-junction channels in cultured cells
(1992) Hülser, Dieter F.; Eckert, Reiner; Zempel, Günther; Paschke, Dietmar; Dunina-Barkovskaja, Antonina
Direct intercellular communication in most tissues is made possible by proteinaceous pores called gap-junction channels. These channels bridge the extracellular gap between apposed cells and connect their intracellular compartments both electrically and metabolically. The extracellular parts of two hemichannels - the connexons - are linked thus forming a communicating gap-junction channel. A connexon is a hexamer of protein subunits which are members of the connexin family. Since connexin 32 (Cx32) was the first gap-junction channel protein to be sequenced from hepatocytes, it serves as a reference to which all other gap-junction proteins are compared. The individual channel conductance may vary between 25 and 150 pS. Gap-junction channels of some tissues are more voltage sensitive (e.g. liver) than others (e.g. heart). The question whether these differences in electrical properties may be attributed to the different connexins being expressed in these tissues is still unanswered. Several approaches to resolve this problem will be discussed in this contribution, all are based on double whole-cell patch-clamp measurements using isolated cell pairs, as follows: (1) Cells with two different channel conductances perfused with anti connexin antibodies to specifically block one channel species; (2) Cells with only one connexin species selected by immunological characterization; (3) Weakly coupled HeLa cells transfected with specific connexin genes, a method which resulted in better correlations between connexin type and single channel properties.