Evidence for the presence of beta 3-adrenergic receptor mRNA in the human brain.

The beta 3-adrenergic receptor (AR) is widely distributed in peripheral tissues, but up to now it has not been detected in the central nervous system. By using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, we found the beta 3-AR mRNA to be present in all the regions of the human brain we investigated. The quantities found were very low compared to those of the beta 1-AR and beta 2-AR mRNAs, being hardly detectable in adult brain. In contrast, the brain of very young infants contained about 100 times more beta 3-AR mRNA than the adult brain, whereas the amounts of beta 1-AR and beta 2-AR transcripts were essentially the same. In addition, using PCR we have cloned a central beta 3-AR coding region from a human frontal cortex cDNA library and have found it to be identical to the corresponding peripheral sequence.