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Paraherquamide is a novel natural anthelmintic product with a mode of action that is incompletely characterized. Nicotine and cholinergic-anthelmintic agonists of different chemical classes were used to produce contraction in Ascaris muscle strips. Paraherquamide and a semisynthetic derivative, 2-deoxy-paraherquamide, antagonized these responses. Analysis of the actions of the antagonists was made using the simple competitive model and nonlinear regression to estimate the pK B values of the antagonists. The analysis was tested using Clark plots. The pK B values for paraherquamide were: nicotine, 5.86 Ϯ 0.14; levamisole, 6.61 Ϯ 0.19; pyrantel, 6.50 Ϯ 0.11; and bephenium, 6.75 Ϯ 0.15. The pK B of nicotine was significantly different from the pK B values for levamisole, pyrantel, and bephenium, showing that paraherquamide can distinguish a subtype of cholinergic receptors sensitive to nicotine and a subtype of cholinergic receptors sensitive to levamisole, pyrantel, and bephenium. The pK B values for 2-deoxy-paraherquamide were: levamisole, 5.31 Ϯ 0.13; pyrantel, 5.63 Ϯ 0.10; and bephenium, 6.07 Ϯ 0.13. The Clark plots of the antagonism illustrated the degree of fit to the competitive model for 2-deoxy-paraherquamide. 2-Deoxy-paraherquamide selectively antagonized the effects of bephenium; the pK B values of levamisole and pyrantel were significantly different from the pK B of bephenium. Paraherquamide and 2-deoxy-paraherquamide are selective competitive cholinergic antagonists that distinguish subtypes of cholinergic receptor in Ascaris muscle corresponding to nicotine-, levamisole-, and bephenium-sensitive receptors.Nematode parasite infections of humans and animals cause disease with loss of productivity, debility, and occasionally death. Ascariasis and hookworm infections are carried by 1.6 billion people throughout the world and in 2% of cases cause loss of life. The use of therapeutic compounds forms a major component of control, and the development of novel therapeutic agents is required to deal with the increasing levels of resistance to existing drugs.Paraherquamide (Fig. 1) is a novel anthelmintic (Yamazaki et al., 1981) that is an alkaloid fermentation product originally isolated from Penicillium paraherquii. The anthelmintic property of paraherquamide was first identified using jirds infected with Trichostrongylus colubriformis (Ostlind et al., 1990). Paraherquamide produces paralysis of parasitic nematodes in culture, without an effect on ATP, suggesting that it does not act as a metabolic poison (Thompson et al., 1996). Interestingly, one of the toxic effects of paraherquamide in the dog (Shoop et al., 1990) is a prolapsed nictitating membrane, an effect that suggests antagonism of neuronal nicotinic receptors (nAChRs). Recently, it has been reported (E.

The pH sensitivity of a cloned rat kidney K+ channel, ROMK1, was examined after expression in Xenopus oocytes. Membrane currents and intracellular pH (pHi) were concomitantly monitored by the two-microelectrode voltage-clamp technique and a pH-sensitive microelectrode. Oocytes injected with ROMK1 cRNA developed a hyperpolarized resting potential of -98.7 +/- 0.98 mV and a slightly inwardly rectifying Ba(2+)-sensitive K+ current. Lowering external pH from 7.4 to 6.7 using membrane-permeable acetate buffer reduced measured pHi from 7.2 to 6.6 and reduced the ROMK1 current by 80%. The H+ blockade of ROMK1 currents was voltage independent. The relationship between ROMK1 slope conductance and pHi fitted to a titration curve suggested binding of four H+ to a site with a pK of 6.79. Extracellular acidification from pH 7.4 to 6.0 using membrane-impermeable biphthalate buffer had no effect on the ROMK1 current. The pH sensitivity of the ROMK1 channel is similar to that reported for a small-conductance native kidney K+ channel.

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