The neuroactive peptide N-acetylaspartylglutamate is not an agonist at the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 3 of metabotropic glutamate receptor.

The peptide N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) is present in high concentrations in the mammalian central nervous system. Various mechanisms have been proposed for its action, including selective activation of the metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) subtype 3, its action at the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor, or the production of glutamate by its hydrolysis catalyzed by an extracellular protease. To re-examine its agonist activity at mGluR3, we coexpressed human or rat mGluR3 with G protein inward rectifying channels in Xenopus laevis oocytes. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis of commercial sources of NAAG showed 0.38 to 0.48% glutamate contamination. Although both human and rat mGluR3 were highly sensitive to glutamate, with EC(50) values of 58 and 28 nM, respectively, purified NAAG (100 microM) had little activity (7.7% of full activation by glutamate). Only in the millimolar range did it show significant activity, possibly due to residual traces of glutamate remaining in the purified NAAG preparations. In contrast, the unpurified NAAG sample did produce a full agonist response with mGluR3 coexpressed with G alpha(15), with an EC(50) of 120 microM, as measured by a calcium release assay. This response can be explained by the 0.38 to 0.48% glutamate contamination. Our results suggest that NAAG may not have a direct agonist activity at the mGluR3 receptor. Thus, several in vivo and in vitro published results that did not address the issue of glutamate contamination of NAAG preparations may need to be re-evaluated.