A search in rat brain cortex synaptic vesicles for endogenous ligands for kainic acid receptors.

Conditions were found for stabilizing rat brain cortex kainic acid (KA) receptors. Such receptors had the same Hill number (about 0.6) for KA and for glutamate. The receptors were then used as detectors for endogenous ligands present in brain cortex synaptic vesicle (SV) soluble extracts. When these SV extracts were fractionated by gel filtration on Sephadex G-10, by thin-layer chromatography, or by high voltage electrophoresis, a single endogenous component, that in all cases comigrated with glutamic acid, was found.