Sean Esslinger
Adjunct Research Assistant Professor

Email: christopher.esslinger@umontana.edu

Phone: (406) 243-4713

After completing undergraduate work in Chemistry at New Mexico State University, he received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Colorado State University in 1992. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of California at Irvine, he moved to the University of Montana in 1995, and became the first NIH postdoctoral fellow in the history of the University of Montana in 1997. In 2000, Dr. Esslinger became one of the initial investigators of the NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Structural and Functional Neuroscience at the University of Montana. He is a research assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and is affiliated with the Department of Chemistry.

 

Research Interests

Research in the group focuses primarily on the neurochemistry of the amino acid glutamate, the major excitatory signaling molecule in central nervous system (CNS), and the glutamate metabolic precursor glutamine. The overall goal of the research is to delineate the process of membrane translocation within neurons and glia by these amino acids, and how these processes contribute to both normal and diseased brain function.

Representative Publications

Bridges, Richard J. and C. Sean Esslinger (2005) The Excitatory Amino Acid Transporters: Pharmacological Insights on Substrate and Inhibitor Specificity of the EAAT Subtypes. Submitted.

Esslinger C.S., Cybulski, K.A., Rhoderick, F.J. (2005) Ny -Aryl Glutamine Analogues as Probes of the ASCT2 Neutral Amino Acid Transporter Binding Site. Submitted.

Carrigan, Christina N.; Bartlett, Richard D.; Esslinger, C. Sean; Cybulski, Kimberly A.; Toncharoensirikul, Pakamas; Bridges, Richard J.; and Charles M. Thompson (2002) “Synthesis and In Vitro Pharmacology of Substituted Quinoline-2,4-Dicarboxylic Acids as Inhibitors of Vesicular Glutamate Transport” J. Med. Chem. 45, (11), 2260-2276,.

Esslinger, C. Sean; Titus, Jody; Koch, Hans P.; Bridges, Richard J.; Chamberlin, A Richard (2002) “Methylation of L-trans-2,4-Pyrrolidine Dicarboxylate Converts the Glutamate Transport Inhibitor from a Substrate to a Non-substrate Inhibitor” Bioorg. Med. Chem. 10, (11), 3509-3515,.

Koch, H.P., Kavanaugh, M.P., Esslinger, C.S., Zerangue, N., Humphrey, J.M., Amara, S.G., Chamberlin, A.R., and Bridges, R.J. (1999) Differentiation of substrate and nonsubstrate inhibitors of the high-affinity, sodium-dependent glutamate transporters. Molecular Pharmacology 56: 1095-1104.

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