Activation of the frog sartorius acetylcholine receptor by a covalently attached group.

The frog sartorius motor endplate was treated with the specific disulfide bond reducing agent dithiothreitol and subsequently exposed to a covalently reacting compound (the nitrophenyl ester of p-carboxyphenyltrimethylammonium iodide, NPTMB) known to activate the dithiothreitol-reduced acetylcholine receptor in Electrophorus electroplax. NPTMB causes a maximum depolarization of about 35 mV when applied to the dithiothreitol-treated sartorious motor endplate. It is ineffective on postjunctional membrane prior to disulfide bond reduction and on extrajunctional regions, reduced or unreduced. High concentrations of a competitive antagonist such as (+)-tubocurarine prevent reaction between NPTMB and the reduced receptor and cause a repolarization of the membrane when applied to the already-depolarized preparation. We conclude that in frog muscle, as in electroplax, the attached activator bridges the acetylcholine binding site of the reduced receptor between a sulfhydryl group, to which it is covalently bound, and a negative subsite, with which it forms a reversible ionic band.