Currently, adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) is recognized as the extracellular messenger that acts through P2 receptors. P2 receptors are divided into two subtypes: P2Y metabotropic receptors and P2X ionotropic receptors, both of which are found in virtually all mammalian cell types studied. Due to the difficulty in studying membrane protein structures by X-ray crystallography or NMR techniques,...

Extracellular nucleotides are primary signals for tissue injury, acting together with various chemical mediators such as prostanoids at the inflammatory site. We investigated whether prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) affects purinergic signaling in murine J774 macrophages. J774 cells expressed four different purinoceptor mRNAs: the ionotropic P2X4 and P2X7 receptors and G-protein-coupled P2Y2 and P2Y6 re...

Ivermectin (IVM), a widely used antiparasitic agent in human and veterinary medicine, was recently shown to augment macroscopic currents through rat P2X(4) receptor channels. In the present study, the effects of IVM on the human P2X(4) (hP2X(4)) receptor channel stably transfected in HEK293 cells were investigated by recording membrane currents using the patch clamp technique. In whole-cell rec...

About the cover: Colocalization of P2X4 using Anti-P2X4 antibody (#APR-002) (red) and P2X3 (green) subunits in the distal population of GPN neurons in situ by confocal immunofluorescence. Special Acknowledgement to Professor Colin A. Nurse from the Department of Biology McMaster University, Ontario Canada for allowing Alomone Labs to use part of a published figure as this Modulator's cover page...

A growing body of evidence indicates that P2X receptors (P2XRs), a family of ligand-gated cation channels activated by extracellular ATP, play an important role in pain signaling. In contrast to the role of the P2X3R subtype that has been extensively studied, the precise roles of others among the seven P2XR subtypes (P2X1R-P2X7R) remain to be determined because of a lack of sufficiently powerfu...