14 research outputs found
Forgotten Plotlanders: Learning from the survival of lost informal housing in the UK.
Colin Ward’s discourses on the arcadian landscape of ‘plotlander’ housing are unique documentations of the anarchistic birth, life, and death of the last informal housing communities in the UK. Today the forgotten history of ‘plotlander’ housing documented by Ward can be re-read in the context of both the apparently never-ending ‘housing crisis’ in the UK, and the increasing awareness of the potential value of learning from comparable informal housing from the Global South. This papers observations of a previously unknown and forgotten plotlander site offers a chance to begin a new conversation regarding the positive potential of informal and alternative housing models in the UK and wider Westernised world
High Affinity Binding of Epibatidine to Serotonin Type 3 Receptors*
Epibatidine and mecamylamine are ligands used widely in the study of
nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the central and peripheral
nervous systems. In the present study, we find that nicotine blocks only 75%
of 125I-epibatidine binding to rat brain membranes, whereas ligands
specific for serotonin type 3 receptors (5-HT3Rs) block the
remaining 25%. 125I-Epibatidine binds with a high affinity to
native 5-HT3Rs of N1E-115 cells and to receptors composed of only
5-HT3A subunits expressed in HEK cells. In these cells, serotonin,
the 5-HT3R-specific antagonist MDL72222, and the 5-HT3R
agonist chlorophenylbiguanide readily competed with
125I-epibatidine binding to 5-HT3Rs. Nicotine was a poor
competitor for 125I-epibatidine binding to 5-HT3Rs.
However, the noncompetitive nAChR antagonist mecamylamine acted as a potent
competitive inhibitor of 125I-epibatidine binding to
5-HT3Rs. Epibatidine inhibited serotonin-induced currents mediated
by endogenous 5-HT3Rs in neuroblastoma cell lines and
5-HT3ARs expressed in HEK cells in a competitive manner. Our
results demonstrate that 5-HT3Rs are previously uncharacterized
high affinity epibatidine binding sites in the brain and indicate that
epibatidine and mecamylamine act as 5-HT3R antagonists. Previous
studies that depended on epibatidine and mecamylamine as nAChR-specific
ligands, in particular studies of analgesic properties of epibatidine, may
need to be reinterpreted with respect to the potential role of
5-HT3Rs