Transporters of Neurotransmitters: Receptive, Transport, and Channel Functions

Based on possible unity of the evolutionary origin of some prokaryotic proteins with eukaryotic ion channels and receptors, this review analyzes interconnections between receptive, transport, and channel functions of integral proteins. This interconnection can be considered the best by the example of neurotransmitter transporters. Their role in chemical synapses and their possible participation in phenomena of synaptic plasticity are reviewed. There are discussed mechanisms of transporter functioning, such as the allosteric model and the model of activity by the principle of channel, as well as data about coupling by the transporters of reception of substrate and its transport with the substrate-activated channel of Cl^–-conductance and the ion leakage. The importance of the latter aspects of the neurotransmitter transporter functioning is usually underestimated in studying neuronal and glial electrogenesis.