Abstract: The heteromeric assembly of a3 and B4 subunits of acetylcholine nicotinic receptors (nAChRs) seems to mediate the secretory response in bovine chromaffin cells. However, there is no information about the localization of these nAChRs in relationship with the secretory active zones in this cellular model. The present work presents the first evidence that, in fact, a population of these receptors is associated through the F-actin cytoskeleton with exocytotic machinery components, as detected by SNAP-25 labeling. Furthermore, we also prove that, upon stimulation, the probability to find ?3?4 nAChRs very close to exocytotic events increases with randomized distributions, thus substantiating the clear dynamic behavior of these receptors during the secretory process. Modeling on secretory dynamics and secretory component distributions supports the idea that a3B4 nAChR cluster mobility could help with improving the efficiency of the secretory response of chromaffin cells. Our study is limited by the use of conventional confocal microscopy; in this sense, a strengthening to our conclusions could come from the use of super-resolution microscopy techniques in the near future

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