Glutamate Receptor, Ionotropic, Kainate 3 (GRIK3)

GRIK3 encodes a protein that belongs to the ligand-gated ionic channel family. It can coassemble with either GRIK4 or GRIK5 to form heteromeric receptors and acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter at many synapses in the central nervous system. RNA editing in the mRNA has been reported.Synapses using L-glutamate are the principal excitatory synapses of the vertebrate nervous system. Puranam et al. (1993) isolated a human glutamate receptor subunit 7 cosmid after high stringency screening of a human genomic placental library using a rat GLUR7 cDNA as a probe. Based on its homology to rat GLUR7, the human gene product was classified as a kainate subtype. By somatic cell hybrid analysis, Puranam et al. (1993) mapped the GLUR7 gene to chromosome 1.