Perturbation to Cholesterol at the Neuromuscular Junction Confers Botulinum Neurotoxin A Sensitivity to Neonatal Mice.

Botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT/A) cleaves SNAP25 at the motor nerve terminals and inhibits stimulus evoked acetylcholine release. This causes skeletal muscle paralysis. However, younger neonatal mice (P7) mice. However, neonatal mice younger than 7 days-age remained unaffected by BoNT/A injection. Also, BoNT/A inhibited stimulus evoked acetylcholine release and stimulus-evoked twitch tension of diaphragm nerve muscle preparations (NMPs) of adult mouse and >P7 neonates but not that of P7. However, cholesterol depletion using methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) sensitized