Paclitaxel is a chemotherapeutic agent used to treat wide range of malignant tumors. Although it has anti-tumoral properties, paclitaxel also shows significant adverse effects on the peripheral nervous system, causing neuropathy. previously been shown exert direct neurotoxic primary DRG neurons. However, little known about paclitaxel’s non-neuronal cells. They provide mechanical and metabolic s...

Transient receptor potential (TRP) ion channels in peripheral sensory neurons are functionally regulated by hydrolysis of the phosphoinositide PI(4,5)P2 and changes in the level of protein kinase mediated phosphorylation following activation of various G protein coupled receptors. We now show that the activity of TRPM3 expressed in mouse dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons is inhibited by agonis...

Cerebellar granule neurons cultured in medium containing a physiological concentration of KCl (5 mM) undergo apoptosis. The cells can be rescued by the in vitro addition of NMDA. The protective effect of NMDA is thought to reflect the in vivo innervation of developing cerebellar granule neurons by glutamatergic afferents. In the current work, we investigated the mechanism of the anti-apoptotic ...

PURPOSE Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is an important cause of neonatal mortality, as this brain injury disrupts normal mitochondrial respiratory activity. Carnitine plays an essential role in mitochondrial fatty acid transport and modulates excess acyl coenzyme A levels. In this study, we investigated whether treatment of primary cultures of rat cortical neurons with L-carnitine was able to ...

Massive production of free radicals (FR) has been associated with a variety of pathological conditions in the central nervous system (CNS). We have used the FR generating compound hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures to model oxidative injury in the brain. Necrotic cell death was monitored for up to 48 h using propidium iodide (PI) and confocal microscopy. A 1 h ex...

background: in vitro model studies are becoming increasingly popular for experimental research designs. they include isolation and expansion of cells of a particular tissue, such as the nervous tissue which contributes to understanding the underlying mechanisms in many pathologies. it enables  the scrutinization of intracellular signaling pathways responsible for cell death. objectives: in the ...