Murray State's Digital Commons

Movement is the primary output of the nervous system. Neuromuscular junctions are the points of connection between the nervous system and the muscles being controlled. In vertebrates, these neuromuscular junctions are cholinergic, meaning in order for movement to be functional the neurons must release the chemical acetylcholine and the acetylcholine receptor must be expressed by the muscle. If there is a sudden change in neural activity, these cholinergic receptors become injured, and the neurons stop releasing the chemical acetylcholine, resulting in the loss of a signal to the neuromuscular junction, resulting in transformation into a sessile organism. Without matching neurotransmitters and receptors, movement cannot occur. The goal of this research is to determine if non-cholinergic receptors are expressed in the species Danio rerio (zebrafish) in place of cholinergic receptors. To discover is this replacement is possible and non-cholinergic receptors can be expressed in Zebrafish, Zebrafish embryos ages 13 to 24 hours post fertilization (hpf), and 7 days post fertilization (dpf) are harvested and labeled with receptor-targeting antibodies to identify different receptors present in developing muscle.