bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/595009; this version posted April 1, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Homomeric Q/R edited AMPA receptors conduct when desensitized Ian D. Coombs1, David Soto1, 2, Thomas P. McGee1, Matthew G. Gold1, Mark Farrant*1, and Stuart G. Cull-Candy*1 1Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK; 2Present Address – Department of Biomedicine, Neurophysiology Laboratory, Medical School, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Casanova 143, 08036 Barcelona, Spain. Correspondence to
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[email protected] Desensitization is a canonical property of ligand-gated ion channels, causing progressive current decline in the continued presence of agonist. AMPA-type glutamate receptors, which mediate fast excitatory sig- naling throughout the brain, exhibit profound desensitization. Recent cryo-EM studies of AMPAR assem- blies show their ion channels to be closed in the desensitized state. Here we report the surprising finding that homomeric Q/R edited AMPARs still allow ions to flow when the receptors are desensitized. GluA2(R) expressed alone, or with auxiliary subunits (γ-2, γ-8 or GSG1L), generates large steady-state currents and anomalous current-variance relationships. Using fluctuation analysis, single-channel recording, and kinetic modeling we demonstrate that the steady-state current is mediated predominantly by ‘conducting desensitized’ receptors.