Prolonged time course of glutamate-operated single channel currents in neuromuscular preparations of small crayfish and a membrane current triggered by glutamate channel gating.

Single channel currents activated by glutamate were recorded by means of the patch-clamp technique in the abdominal superficial extensor muscle and the claw opener muscle of small (1-3 months old) and large (greater than 16 months old) crayfish. It was found that in small crayfish the time course of glutamate-operated single channel currents was prolonged by a factor of about 4 in these two preparations. In the abdominal superficial extensor muscle, single channel currents activated by 5 mmol/l glutamate had a mean burst length of tau = 2-3 ms in large crayfish and a mean burst length of tau = 8-9 ms in small crayfish. In the claw opener, for large crayfish tau congruent to 0.5 ms and for small crayfish tau = 1.5-2.5 ms resulted (500 mumol/l glutamate). Moreover, single channel currents with long time courses often slowly increased their amplitudes during the open time of the channel and current amplitudes did not decline completely to the baseline after channel closing. In addition, single channel currents with relatively constant amplitude were often followed by a small increasing and decreasing membrane current. The latter results suggest that glutamate channel gating might trigger a membrane current.