TY - JOUR T1 - Agonist and Potentiation Actions of <em>n</em>-Octanol on γ-Aminobutyric Acid Type A Receptors JF - Molecular Pharmacology JO - Mol Pharmacol SP - 1011 LP - 1019 DO - 10.1124/mol.55.6.1011 VL - 55 IS - 6 AU - Yasutaka Kurata AU - William Marszalec AU - Jay Z. Yeh AU - Toshio Narahashi Y1 - 1999/06/01 UR - http://molpharm.aspetjournals.org/content/55/6/1011.abstract N2 - The n-octanol effects on the γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor were studied in human embryonic kidney 293 cells transfected with α1, β2, and γ2S subunit cDNAs. GABA-evoked currents had an EC50 of 13.3 ± 1.7 μM and a Hill coefficient (nH) of 1.4 ± 0.1. n-Octanol was also capable of evoking a small current with an EC50 of 1000 μM and an nH of 2. In addition, n-octanol modulated GABA-induced currents in a concentration-dependent manner. Coapplications of n-octanol increased peak currents evoked by 3 μM GABA with an EC50 of 190 μM and an nH of 1.8. The extent of potentiation decreased with increasing GABA concentrations and no potentiation was observed whenn-octanol was coapplied with 1000 μM GABA. One-minute preapplication of 1000 μM n-octanol slightly potentiated 3 μM GABA-induced current, whereas it suppressed 300 μM GABA-induced current to 16% of the control, suggesting that 84% of the receptors underwent desensitization. Two models were used to explain n-octanol agonistic and potentiating actions on the α1β2γ2S GABAA receptor: n-octanol binds to multiple sites to exert multiple actions, orn-octanol acts as a partial agonist to manifest these actions. The partial agonist model is unique because it is a simpler model to explain n-octanol actions on the GABAA receptor. ER -