Volume 12, No 1, Mar 2002

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 12 Issue 1, March 2002: 33-37

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Identification of γ 1 subunit of GABAA receptor in rat testis

Jing Hua HU, Yuan Chang YAN*

Lab of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China Correspondence:

The isoform type of g
subunits of GABA_A receptor is a molecular determinant of its
pharmacological characteristics. At present, the existence of GABA_A
receptor in mammalian sperm is still a controversy. By using degenerate primers
designed according to highly conserved region in all three g
(g₁, g₂
and g₃) subunits cloned in rat brain, we
performed reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to examine
the expression pattern of g subunits of GABA_A
receptor in rat testis. Only one 370 bp fragment was obtained from RT-PCR in rat
testis and sequencing results showed that it represented g₁
subunit, but not g₂ or g₃
subunit. Using the cloned fragment as probe, a 3.8 kb transcript which in size
as same as g₁ subunit in rat brain was
detected in rat testis mRNA by performing Northern blot assay. Furthermore,
results of in situ hybridization assay confirmed that g₁
subunit was expressed in round spermatids and spermatozoa, maybe also in
secondary spermatocyte. These evidences proved that g₁
subunit of GABA_A receptor is exclusively expressed in rat testis and
this feature may be the structural basis of the specific function of GABA_A
receptors in sperm acrosome reaction.

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