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Evidence for an Extracellular Zinc-Veneer in Rodent Brains from Experiments with Zn-Ionophores and ZnT3 Knockouts
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Evidence for an Extracellular Zinc-Veneer in Rodent Brains from Experiments with Zn-Ionophores and ZnT3 Knockouts

Irma Nydegger, Sean M Rumschik, Jinfu Zhao and Alan R Kay
ACS chemical neuroscience, Vol.3(10), pp.761-766
07/04/2012
DOI: 10.1021/cn300061z
PMCID: PMC3474262
PMID: 23077720
url
https://doi.org/10.1021/cn300061zView
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Ionic zinc is found at a high concentration in some glutamatergic vesicles of the mammalian brain. Ionic zinc is also found chelated to macromolecules in the extracellular space, constituting what has been called the “zinc veneer”. In this communication we show that the zinc ionophore, pyrithione, can be used to demonstrate the presence of the veneer. Application of pyrithione without added ionic zinc to rodent hippocampal slices mobilizes extracellular zinc, which can be detected intracellularly by the zinc probe FluoZin-3. In addition, we show that ZnT3 null mice, which lack the transporter responsible for stocking synaptic vesicles, nevertheless do have a zinc veneer, albeit diminished compared to wild type animals. The presence of the zinc veneer in ZnT3 null mice may account for the absence of any marked deficit in these animals.
Synaptic Ionophore Zinc Hippocampus

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