Antipsychotic drugs are D2 dopamine receptor competitive antagonists. It has long been speculated that these drugs, which are weak base amines that cross the blood brain barrier, accumulate by acidic trapping in acidic organelles including synaptic vesicles. Previous experiments addressing this hypothesis relied on acidophilic dyes that are not psychiatric drugs and cell cultures that do not recapitulate D2 receptor-dependent neurotransmission. Therefore, we identified a clinically used antipsychotic drug that can be directly imaged in the brain slice by two-photon microscopy. Our experiments established that this antipsychotic is subject to acidic trapping, including in midbrain dopamine neuron synaptic vesicles, which contain the native transmitter. Furthermore, we showed that the antipsychotic drug can be released from vesicles by action potentials, which requires Ca2+, or an amphetamine, which requires the dopamine transporter and the vesicular monoamine transporter. Vesicular accumulation and release were seen at a therapeutic concentration in vitro and with systemic administration in animals. Thus, these results demonstrated for the first time that an antipsychotic drug is subject to vesicular release with dopamine at synapses. This finding is intriguing because it implies that local antipsychotic drug concentration will scale wit dopamine exactly where and when dopamine synapses are active. Given that synaptic vesicular release of an antipsychotic drug has now been established, this proposal determines the functional impact of vesicular antipsychotic drug release on dopaminergic transmission mediated by D2 receptors in the substantia nigra and the striatum. Our working hypothesis is that efficacy of the vesicular drug will increase with repetitive firing, which is relevant for behavior. As acidic trapping is passive and cannot be disrupted without inhibiting vesicular storage of dopamine, experiments make use of the striking difference in kinetics of vesicular trapping (i.e., it occurs over hours and then is long lasting) and acute application of the drug vi the bath (i.e., in minutes) that was revealed by two-photon microscopy. Striatum experiments are focused on electrochemically measured dopamine overflow, which is subject to frequency dependent inhibition by D2 autoreceptors. Substantia nigra experiments utilize patch clamping of dopamine neurons to assay spontaneous miniature and evoked inhibitory currents that are induced by somatodendritic D2 receptors. Together, these complementary approaches will ascertain the impact of activity-dependent vesicular release of antipsychotic drug on synaptic D2 receptor function.
This project will determine the impact of vesicular release of an antipsychotic drug, which has been demonstrated recently with two-photon microscopy in the brain slice, on dopaminergic transmission. The findings here could alter the paradigm for psychiatric drug action in the brain, resulting in altered design of new drugs and dosing of existing drugs based on their susceptibility to acidic trapping in vesicles.
