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NEUROTOX '91 was the fourth meeting in a series which started in 1979. The '91 meeting, like its predecessors, was held under the patronage of the Society of Chemical Industry, and despite the unfortunate proximity of hostilities in the Arabian Gulf attracted a truly international mix of industrial and academic pesticide scientists. This volume contains the text of invited papers read at the meeting and presents the dramatic developments which so excited those who attended. The potential of molecular neurobiology for gaining knowledge of target sites for neurotoxicants is now starting to be realised. These studies, in conjunction with developments in molecular imaging and modelling, provide new oppor tunities for chemists and biologists to gain insights into molecular interactions underlying intoxication. Molecular techniques have also enabled rapid ad vances on a second front, where the cloning of genes controlling pesticide resistance should have a profound impact on our understanding of this commercially important problem. The understanding of molecular events will undoubtedly be vital in future developments in chemical control of pests; however, the value of understand ing the way in which the nervous system controls behaviour and how behaviour can be modified by chemicals of bath synthetic and natural origins was highlighted. Natural products and their synthetic analogues have continued to provide new and interesting molecules which are already proving their worth as tools for the neuroscientist and may offer leads for commercial synthesis.
List of contents
Section 1 Natural Products.- 1 Philanthotoxin-433 and Analogs, Noncompetitive Antagonists of Glutamate and Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors.- 2 Spider Neurotoxins as Tools for the Investigation of Glutamatergic Synaptic Transmission.- 3 Probing Calcium Channels with Venom Toxins.- 4 Conus Peptides and Biotechnology.- 5 Natural and Synthetic Toxins at Insect Receptors and Ion Channels: The Search for Insecticide Leads and Target Sites.- 6 Avermectins: Idiosyncratic Toxicity in a Subpopulation of Collie Dogs.- Section 2 Molecular and Cellular Physiology of Insects and Nematodes.- 7 The GABA Activated Cl- Channel in Insects as Target for Insecticide Action: A Physiological Study.- 8 Pharmacology of the Ascaris Nervous System.- 9 Chemical Intercellular Signalling Mechanisms in the Nervous System of the Nematode Ascaris suum: Potential Sites of Actions of New Generations of Anthelmintic Drugs.- 10 The Peptidergic Neuron: Possible New Molecular Targets.- Section 3 Applications of Molecular Biology.- 11 Cloning Nematode Acetylcholine Receptor Genes.- 12 The Molecular Biology of Potassium Channels and Mutations that Alter the Selectivity of the Pore.- 13 FMRFamide-Related Peptides: Organisation and Expression of the Gene in the Snail Lymnaea.- 14 Expression of Neurotransmitter Receptors in Insect Cells Using Baculovirus Vectors.- 15 Functional Expression in Xenopus Oocytes of Invertebrate Ligand-Gated Ion Channels.- Section 4 Molecular Structure.- 16 NMR Approaches to Protein Structure and Function.- 17 From Molecular Biology to Molecular Modelling: The Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor.- Section 5 Resistance Mechanisms.- 18 Mechanisms of Resistance to Pyrethroids and DDT in a Japanese Strain of the Housefly.- 19 Isolation of Insect Genes Coding for Voltage-Sensitive Sodium Channels and Ligand-Gated Chloride Channels by PCR-Based Homology Probing.- 20 Cloning of an Invertebrate GAB A Receptor from the Cyclodiene Resistance Locus in Drosophila.- Section 6 Neuronal Networks and Behaviour.- 21 Integration in Neuronal Networks that Control Movement.- 22 Neuromodulation of Small Neural Networks in Crustacea.- 23 Olfaction in Manduca sexta: Cellular Mechanisms of Responses to Sex Pheromone.- 24 Molecular Determinants of Pheromone Activity.- Epilogue: P. N. R. Usherwood.- Author Index.
