title: Expressions of caspase-3, Tunel, and Hsp72 immunoreactivities in cultured spinal cord neurons of rat after exposure to glutamate, nitric oxide, or peroxynitrite.
abstract: Although excitotoxic and oxidative stress play important roles in spinal neuron death, the exact mechanisms are not fully understood. We examined cell damage of primary culture of 11 day-old rat spinal cord by addition of glutamate, nitric oxice (NO) or peroxynitrite (PN) with detection of caspase-3, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin in situ nick end labeling (TUNEL) or 72 kDa heat shock protein (HSP72). With addition of glutamate, NOC18 (a slow NO releaser) or PN, immunoreactivity for caspase-3 became stronger in the cytoplasm of large motor neurons in the ventral horn at 6 to 24 hr. TUNEL positive nuclei were found in spinal large motor neurons from 24 h and the positive cell proportion greatly increased at 48 h in contrast to the vehicle. On the other hand, the immunoreactivity of HSP72 in the ventral horn was already positive at 0 h, and gradually decreased in the course of time with glutamate, NOC18 or PN than vehicle treatment. In the dorsal horn, the proportion of caspase-3 positive small neurons greatly increased at 6 to 48 h after addition of glutamate. The present results suggest that both excitotoxic and oxidative stress play important roles in the apoptotic pathway in cultured spinal neurons.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Okayama University Medical School, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama 700-8558, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Manabe
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Warita
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shiro
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Abe