D. Tapken and M. Hollmann (2006).
Homologs of mammalian glutamate receptors in invertebrates and plants.
In: Biological and biophysical aspects of ligand-gated ion channel receptor superfamilies, H. Arias, ed. Research Signpost, Trivandrum, pp. 321-382.
Glutamate is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the central nervous system not only in mammals, where it is excitatory, but also in invertebrates where it has complex excitatory as well as inhibitory functions. In addition glutamate in invertebrates serves as the key transmitter at the neuromuscular junction. The cloning in the early 1990s of invertebrate glutamate receptors homologous to the mammalian receptors allowed specific analyses of glutamatergic pathways through combinations of genetic, biochemical and electrophysiological approaches which yielded much information as they were guided by the known properties of the mammalian receptors. This chapter is devoted to summarizing the results those molecular approaches have produced in the past decade. Furthermore, we detail the history and recent progress in structural and functional analysis of glutamate receptors from a rather unlikely source, namely higher plants.