Nerve growth factor modulates the expression of muscarinic cholinergic receptor messenger RNA in telencephalic neuronal cultures from newborn rat brain.

The effect of nerve growth factor (NGF) on muscarinic receptor subtypes was investigated in a primary culture of telencephalic neurons prepared from neonatal rats. The treatment with 100 ng/ml of NGF significantly enhanced choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity and intracellular acetylcholine (ACh) content during cultivation. The same treatment induced an early transient increase of the number of muscarinic cholinergic receptors (mAChR), as measured by [3H]quinuclidinyl benzilate binding to cell homogenate, that was followed by a dramatic decrease of the receptor density from the 9th day of culture. Atropine completely prevented the decrease of the maximal number of muscarinic recognition sites induced by NGF. Prolonged exposure of telencephalic neurons to NGF also induced a significant reduction of the relative content of the messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding m1 and m3 receptors, while the m4 transcript was increased by the treatment. We suggest that the prolonged stimulation of cholinergic neurons by NGF induces a downregulation of m1 and m3 mAChR and their mRNAs on the postsynaptic site, while it increases the synthesis of the functionally distinct m4 receptor subtype, which might be presynaptically localized on cholinergic neurons. The transient increase of the receptor number that occurs at the first days of culture was not paralleled by changes in the relative content of mAChR mRNAs and might be associated with the trophic activity of NGF on cholinergic synapses during early development.