Photoactivatable drugs for nicotinic optopharmacology.

Banala, Sambashiva; Arvin, Matthew C; Bannon, Nicholas M; Jin, Xiao-Tao; Macklin, John J; Wang, Yong; Peng, Can; Zhao, Guiqing et al. · Nat Methods · 2018

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Photoactivatable pharmacological agents have revolutionized neuroscience, but the palette of available compounds is limited. We describe a general method for caging tertiary amines by using a stable quaternary ammonium linkage that elicits a red shift in the activation wavelength. We prepared a photoactivatable nicotine (PA-Nic), uncageable via one- or two-photon excitation, that is useful to study nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in different experimental preparations and spatiotemporal scales.

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