Department of Chemistry, University of Gothenburg, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
Chemphyschem. 2010 Sep 10;11(13):2756-63. doi: 10.1002/cphc.201000258.
Unraveling the mechanistic details of neurotransmitter exocytosis is arguably among the most important molecular problems in neuroscience today. Investigations at single cells, particularly with electrochemical methods, have given unique chemical and biological insight into this process at the fundamental level. The rapid response time (submillisecond) of microelectrodes makes them well suited for monitoring the dynamic process of exocytosis. We review here recent developments in electrochemical techniques to spatially and simultaneously detect exocytosis across a single cell and to measure the transmitter content of single vesicles removed from cells. The former method is used to demonstrate dynamic heterogeneity in release across a cell, and in the latter work comparison is made between vesicle content and release to conclude that only a fraction of the transmitter is released during full exocytosis.
解析神经递质胞吐的机制细节可以说是当今神经科学最重要的分子问题之一。单细胞水平的研究，特别是电化学方法，在基本水平上为这一过程提供了独特的化学和生物学见解。微电极的快速响应时间（亚毫秒级）使其非常适合监测胞吐的动态过程。我们在这里回顾了电化学技术的最新进展，这些技术可用于在单细胞上空间和同时检测胞吐作用，并测量从细胞中去除的单个囊泡的递质含量。前一种方法用于证明细胞释放过程中的动态异质性，在后一项工作中，对囊泡内容物和释放进行了比较，得出的结论是，在完全胞吐作用期间，只有一部分递质被释放。
