| Tobacco use has been implicated in a wide range of human diseases, including heart disease, emphysema, and cancer, which together result in millions of premature deaths each year. The addictive properties of nicotine are a major cause of persistent and compulsive tobacco use. Nicotine addiction is thought to result from long-term adaptive changes in the activity and expression of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain. However, the molecular and neuronal mechanisms that underlie these adaptive processes remain poorly understood. We have been using genetic analysis in a simple animal model, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, to investigate the molecular basis of nicotine adaptation. C. elegans exhibits a striking and easily measurable response to nicotine, and long-term nicotine exposure leads to nicotine tolerance and dependence with respect to behaviors controlled by both neuromuscular and neuronal nicotinic receptors. We are studying C. elegans mutants with altered responses to nicotine, with the goal of identifying new proteins that participate in nicotine addiction in other animals, including humans. | |||||||||
 |
 |
||||||||
Papers: Gottschalk A, Almedom, RB, Schedletzky T, Anderson AD, Yates JR III, Schafer WR (2005) "Identification and characterization of novel nicotinic receptor-associated proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans." EMBO Journal 24:2566-78. Epub 2005 Jun 30. +supplementary material |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||