Summary
Two compartments have been defined in monoaminergic synaptic vesicles: the core or central compartment, storage site for monoamines, and the matrix or outer compartment, of unknown function. The outer compartment reacts with the mixture of zinc iodide-osmium tetroxide (ZIO). This reaction is temperature and time dependent and may be abolished by -SH reagents.
The effect of drugs inhibiting the synthesis of serotonin and noradrenaline (stored in the core) on the ZIO reaction in the matrix was studied in synaptic vesicles of rat pineal nerves. The inhibitors of monoamine synthesis abolish or decrease the ZIO reaction directly or in combination with the administration of tyramine. This effect is temperature dependent suggesting that the drugs act on different components of the matrix that react with ZIO at different temperatures. A comparison of the present results with those obtained with -SH reagents seems to indicate that the drugs assayed act, at least in part, by changing the accessibility of-SH groups in vesicle proteins. (An abstract of this paper was presented at the 7th International Congress of Pharmacology, Paris, 1978.)
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Supported by grants from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Técnicas, CONICET, and the Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica, SECYT, Argentina
We are grateful to Margarita López de Cáceres for technical assistance, to Adriana Contreras for the electron micrographs and to María Aued de Rau for the illustrations. Rita Cardoni is a fellow of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Técnicas, Argentina
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de Iraldi, A.P., Cardoni, R. ZIO staining in synaptic vesicles of the rat pineal nerves after inhibition of serotonin and noradrenaline synthesizing enzymes. Cell Tissue Res. 200, 91–100 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00236890
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00236890