Title: β-Phenylethylamine Requires the Dopamine Transporter to Release Dopamine in Caenorhabditis elegans
Abstract: Previous data showed that β-phenylethylamine (βPEA) causes short-lasting behavioral effects in mammals likely by increasing the concentration of extracellular dopamine. However, the mechanism through which βPEA releases dopamine has not been completely elucidated yet. Recent data showed that βPEA causes behavioral and in vitro effects in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as well. In cells transfected with the C. elegans dopamine transporter, βPEA-induced increase of extracellular dopamine is completely blocked by RTI-55, a cocaine homolog and dopamine transporter inhibitor. Interestingly, in C. elegans neuronal cultures, RTI-55 only partly inhibits the effect of βPEA, suggesting that in native systems other mechanisms are required by βPEA to increase extracellular dopamine. Amperometric recordings demonstrated that βPEA causes oxidative currents, that is, dopamine release, only in a subset of dopaminergic neurons. βPEA, however, did not generate oxidative currents in neurons isolated from mutants that do not express the dopamine transporter. Moreover, the increase in extracellular dopamine by βPEA does not involve the monoamine vesicles as genetic ablation of cat-1, the C. elegans homolog of the vesicular monoamine transporter, had no effect on the ability of βPEA to increase extracellular dopamine. Taken together, these data suggest that βPEA releases dopamine in the synaptic cleft via the dopamine transporter.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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