Although mu opioid receptors desensitize in various cell lines in vitro, the relationship of this change in signaling efficacy to the development of tolerance in vivo remains uncertain. It is clear that a system is needed in which functional mu opioid receptor expression is obtained in appropriate neurons so that desensitization can be measured, manipulated, and mutated receptors expressed in this environment. We have developed a recombinant system in which expression of a flag-tagged mu opioid receptor is returned to dorsal root ganglia neurons from mu opioid receptor knockout mice in vitro. Flow cytometry analysis showed that adenoviral-mediated expression of the amino-terminal flag-tagged mu opioid receptor in neurons resulted in approximately 1.3x10(6) receptors/cell. Many mu opioid receptor cell lines express a similar density of receptors but this is approximately 7x greater than the number of endogenous receptors expressed by matched wild-type neurons. Inhibition of the high voltage-activated calcium currents in dorsal root ganglia neurons by the mu agonist, D-Ala(2), N-MePhe(4), Gly(5)-ol-enkephalin (DAMGO), was not different between the endogenous and flag-tagged receptor at several concentrations of DAMGO used. Both receptors desensitized equally over the first 6 h of DAMGO pre-incubation, but after 24 h the response of the endogenous receptor to DAMGO had desensitized further than the flag- tagged receptor (71+/-3 vs 29+/-7% respectively; P<0.002), indicating less desensitization in neurons expressing a higher density of receptor. Using flow cytometry to quantify the percentage of receptors remaining on the neuronal cell surface, the flag-tagged receptor internalized by 17+/-1% after 20 min and 55+/-2% after 24 h of DAMGO. These data indicate that this return of function model in neurons recapitulates many of the characteristics of endogenous mu opioid receptor function previously identified in non-neuronal cell lines.