Differences in kinetics between GABAC and GABAA receptors on carp retinal bipolar cells

The present work was undertaken to characterize kinetics, including activation, desensitization and deactivation, of responses mediated by GABAA and GABAC receptors on carp retinal bipolar cells, using the whole-cell patch-clamp technique. It was revealed that the GABAC response was generally slower in kinetics than the GABAA response. Activation kinetics of both the receptors could be well fit by monoexponential functions with time constants t, being 44.57 ms (GABAC) and 10.86 ms (GABAA) respectively. Desensitization of the GABAAresponse was characterized by a fast and a slow exponential component with time constants of τfast = 2.16 s and τslow = 19.78 s respectively, whereas desensitization of the GABAC response was fit by a monoexponential function of the time constant τ = 6.98 s. Deactivation at both the receptors was adequately described by biexponential functions with time constants being much higher for the GABAC response (τfast= 674.8 ms; τslow = 2 090 ms) than those for the GABAA response (τfast = 42.07 ms; τslow = 275.1 ms). These differences in kinetics suggest that GABAC and GABAA receptors may be involved in processing signals in different frequency domains.