The human desipramine-sensitive noradrenaline transporter and the importance of defined amino acids for its function.

1. This article gives a short overview of the physiology, pharmacology and the molecular biology of the human Na+/Cl(-)-dependent noradrenaline transporter (hNAT) and its gene. 2. Furthermore, naturally occurring variants of the hNAT are described and new results obtained through site-directed mutagenesis of the hNAT are presented, which increase our understanding about structural domains and amino acids critically involved in substrate, cosubstrate and inhibitor binding to the hNAT.