Characterization, by size, density, osmotic fragility, and immunoaffinity, of acetylcholine- and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide-containing storage particles from myenteric neurones of the guinea-pig.

When cytoplasmic extracts of guinea-pig myenteric neurones are submitted to centrifugal density gradient fractionation in a zonal rotor acetylcholine is bimodally distributed in the gradient, in a peak (I) rich in synaptic vesicles of the classic type and in a denser peak (II/VI) rich in densecored vesicles and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP). The putative stable synaptic vesicle markers synaptophysin (p38), vesicular proteoglycan, and Mg2+-activated ATPase were also bimodally distributed, with a peak coincident with peak I and another, broader peak embracing peak II/VI, and neighbouring peaks of other neuropeptides resolved from peak II/VI by the density gradient separation procedure used. To establish whether the stable markers, acetylcholine and VIP in peak II/VI were present in one particle or several, attempts were made to separate them by particle-exclusion chromatography and differential osmotic fragility. These were unsuccessful, leading us to conclude that the storage particles in peak II/VI contain both neurotransmitters and all three putative stable synaptic vesicle markers. It is suggested that such particles are the counterparts, in cholinergic neurones of the myenteric plexus, of the dense-cored, enkephalin- and noradrenaline-containing vesicles of certain adrenergic neurones and, like the latter, may exist in a precursor-product relationship with the classic synaptic vesicles containing the small-molecular-mass transmitters and found in the same nerve terminals.