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Figure 11 | BMC Biophysics

Figure 11

From: Characterizing low affinity epibatidine binding to α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors with ligand depletion and nonspecific binding

Figure 11

Ligand depletion helps identify the low affinity site when NSB is significant in competition data. A. Increasing concentrations of binding sites and [3H]EB samples a wide range of fractional contributions of the two binding sites and NSB to total binding. The combination [3H]EB = 0.013 nM and R1T = 0.13 nM mostly samples behavior of the high affinity site. The low affinity site contributes at most one-hundredth of the total binding; its contribution is always smaller than NSB. In contrast, the combination [3H]EB = 20 nM and R1T = 20 nM more effectively samples behavior of the low affinity site. The low affinity site contributes a maximum of one-tenth of the total binding and contributes more than NSB does to total binding up to about 20 nM cold EB. The y-axis values are calculated as Q/(R1L+R2L+NSB) where Q = R1L, R2L, or NSB. These results suggest this approach might adequately sample the contribution from the low affinity site to total binding during fitting of noisy data. B. The p values compare fits from one site modeltotal and two sites modeltotal to competition data generated with α = 0.1. One set (Δ) used [3H]EB = R1T = 20 nM; the second set (□), [3H]EB = 0.013, 0.3, and 20 nM and R1T = 0.13, 1, and 20 nM. Lines show average log(p). At S/N = 50 for the first set, CIs included the true values (Kd1 = 0.016 nM (CI: 0.010-0.025 nM); Kd2 = 14.9 nM (CI: 6.3-35 nM); R1T = 20.2 nM (CI: 19.7-20.6 nM); R2T = 4.7 nM (CI: 2.8-6.6 nM); α = 0.096 (CI: 0.091-0.100) (n = 5 for each CI). At S/N = 25 for the second set, CIs included the true values (Kd1 = 0.012 nM (CI: 0.009-0.014 nM); Kd2 = 17.0 nM (CI: 4.3-66 nM); fraction of R2T = 0.28 (CI: 0.11-0.45); α = 0.10 (CI: 0.093-0.108).

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