Substance P-like immunoreactivity at the frog neuromuscular junction.

It has been recently shown that frog motoneurons and their nerve terminals contain calcitonin gene-related peptide-like immunoreactivity in large dense-core vesicles (Matteoli et al., Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 85, 7366-7370, 1988). We report here by an immunofluorescence approach that the same neurons and nerve terminals also contain substance P-like immunoreactivity. The demonstration of substance P-like immunoreactivity in the frog motor nerve endings supports previous data suggesting a physiological role for this peptide in the modulation of cholinergic transmission.