Cell Reports
Volume 27, Issue 5, 30 April 2019, Pages 1327-1333.e3
Journal home page for Cell Reports

Report
LOVIT Is a Putative Vesicular Histamine Transporter Required in Drosophila for Vision

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.04.024Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • LOVIT is a photoreceptor synaptic-vesicle-enriched transporter

  • LOVIT is required for histamine concentration in synaptic vesicles

  • Loss of LOVIT in Drosophila photoreceptors impairs visual transmission

Summary

Classical fast neurotransmitters are loaded into synaptic vesicles and concentrated by the action of a specific vesicular transporter before being released from the presynaptic neuron. In Drosophila, histamine is distributed mainly in photoreceptors, where it serves as the main neurotransmitter for visual input. In a targeted RNAi screen for neurotransmitter transporters involved in concentrating photoreceptor synaptic histamine, we identified an SLC45 transporter protein, LOVIT (loss of visual transmission). LOVIT is prominently expressed in photoreceptor synaptic vesicles and is required for Drosophila visual neurotransmission. Null mutations of lovit severely reduced the concentration of histamine in photoreceptor terminals. These results demonstrate a LOVIT-dependent mechanism, maintaining the synaptic concentration of histamine, and provide evidence for a histamine vesicular transporter besides the vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT) family.

Keywords

vesicular transporter
neurotransmitter concentration
histamine
synaptic transmission

Cited by (0)

4

Lead Contact