Choline acetyltranferase is the enzyme that produces the important neurotransmitter acetylcholine. The nervous system uses this neurotransmitter for communication between neurons in the brain and also for signalling organs throughout the body. Nervous system disease, such as Parkinson's, epilepsy and Alzheimer's, often shows a loss of neurotransmitters and their associated cells. For these reasons, the conditions that allow and enhance the expression of neurotransmitter.synthetic enzymes, are important to understand; they are indicators of neuronal cell health and may well be the reason why neurons die in some brain diseases. The research outlined is designed to exploit newly gained information regarding choline acetyltransferase. This enzyme is processed multiple times by healthy neurons, and the absence of such processing is corellated with nervous system disease states. The proposed work will delineate the nature of the processing and provide the necessary information to begin identifying intracellular processing sites. Antibodies to the enzyme's precursor will be produced so that this newly discovered enzyme form can be identified and studied. These reagents can be used at the cellular level to determine the location of the precursor and what organelles are responsible for the processing.
