Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has a variety of physiological functions. H2S reportedly increases intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) in astrocytes. However, the precise mechanism and functional role this increase are not known. Here, we examined effects on [Ca2+]i astrocytes from rat spinal cord whether affects ATP-induced signaling, which is known to be involved synaptic function. Na2S (150 ?M...

Background: B cell CLL/lymphoma 2 protein, bcl-2, is an important anti-apoptotic factor that has been implicated in lithium’s neuroprotective effect. However, most studies have focused on assessing the effects of lithium in neurons, ignoring examination of bcl-2 in astrocytes, which also influence neuronal survival and are affected in bipolar disorder. The aim of this study was to evaluate whet...

Spironolactone has produced beneficial effects in animal models of neurodegenerative disorders. However, the underlying mechanisms of this agent on neurons and glia are mostly unknown. Therefore, we aimed to show the effects of spironolactone and fludrocortisone, a mineralocorticosteroid receptor agonist, on neuronal and glial toxicity induced by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) activation and chlor...

Astrocytes in primary culture can be classified morphologically into two types: fibrous astrocytes and protoplasmic astrocytes. To examine the role of tenascin-C (TN) in an in vitro astrocyte culture, primary cultures of astrocytes prepared from the brains of wild-type and of TN-deficient embryonic mice were analyzed. In primary culture of astrocytes from TN-deficient mice fibrous astrocytes di...

Astrocytes are the most abundant glia cell type in the central nervous system (CNS), and are known to constitute heterogeneous populations that differ in their morphology, gene expression and function. Although glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is the cardinal cytological marker of CNS astrocytes, GFAP-negative astrocytes can easily be found in the adult CNS. Astrocytes are also allocated ...

The inability to purify and culture astrocytes has long hindered studies of their function. Whereas astrocyte progenitor cells can be cultured from neonatal brain, culture of mature astrocytes from postnatal brain has not been possible. Here, we report a new method to prospectively purify astrocytes by immunopanning. These astrocytes undergo apoptosis in culture, but vascular cells and HBEGF pr...

calcineurin (can) is a ca2+/calmodulin (ca2+/cam)-dependent serine/threonine protein phosphatase expressed in most mammalian tissues but found at higher concentration in brain. in the last decade there have been a steadily increasing number of studies identifying neuronal can as a primary suspect in neuronal vulnerability, synapse loss, dendritic atrophy, synaptic dysfunction and neuroinflammat...

Post-mortem investigations have implicated cerebral astrocytes immunoreactive (-IR) for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in the etiopathology of depression and suicide. However, it remains unclear whether astrocytic subpopulations IR other markers are similarly affected. Astrocytes to vimentin (VIM) display different regional densities than GFAP-IR healthy brain, so may be differently alt...

introduction: recent studies have shown that astrocytes play major roles in normal and disease condition of the central nervous system including multiple sclerosis (ms). molecular target therapy studies in ms have revealed that connexin-43 (cx43) and aquaporin-4 (aqp4) contents of astrocytes undergo expression alteration. fluoxetine had some effects in ms patients unrelated to its known antidep...