Relationships of agonist properties to the single channel kinetics of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.

The effects of the systematic variations of the acetylcholine molecule on the microscopic kinetics of channel activation were studied using the patch clamp technique. The modifications consisted of adding either halogens or a methyl group to the acetyl carbon of acetylcholine, which results in a change in both the steric and ionic character of that portion of the molecule. The ionic character of the bond affected both the opening and closing rates of the channel. An increase in the ionicity decreased the opening rate and increased the closing rate of the channel, suggesting that the open state was destabilized. Increasing the size of the substituent decreased both the association and dissociation rates for agonist binding but had little effect on the equilibrium constant. This indicates that the energy barrier for binding and unbinding was increased without a major change in the energy of the bound and unbound states. These results suggest that it is possible to assign changes in the structural characteristics of the ligand to changes in individual steps in a reaction scheme, which can lead to specific predictions for the properties of related compounds.