Abstract Astrocytes are involved in many functions of the brain including water transport and moderation of neuronal synapses, and most functions require the astrocyte endfeet to be highly mobile. In the aging brain the functions in the brain start to deteriorate, decay or loss of metabolic functions may eventually cause diseases such as Parkinsons’s and Alzheimer’s disease. In this study cAMP-...

Motor neurons are progressively and predominantly degenerated in ALS, which is not only induced by multiple intrinsic pathways but also significantly influenced by the neighboring glial cells. In particular, astrocytes derived from the SOD1 mutant mouse model of ALS or from human familial or sporadic ALS patient brain tissue directly induce motor neuron death in culture; however, the mechanisms...

Originally ascribed passive roles in the CNS, astrocytes are now known to have an active role in the regulation of synaptic transmission. Neuronal activity can evoke Ca2+ transients in astrocytes, and Ca2+ transients in astrocytes can evoke changes in neuronal activity. The excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate has been shown to mediate such bidirectional communication between astrocytes and ne...

Astrocytes are nonprofessional APCs that may participate in Ag presentation and activation of pathogenic CD4+ T cells involved in central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory diseases. Using immortalized pure astrocytes as a complement to the study of primary astrocytes, we investigated whether these astrocytes express elements involved in the class II endocytic pathway and if they are capable of ...

objective(s):melatonin is known as an anti-inflammatory agent, and it has been proven to exert neuroprotection through inhibition of cell death (apoptosis) in several models of brain injury.secondary injury following the primary traumatic brain injury (tbi) results in glial cells activation, especially astrocytes. in fact, astrocyte activation causes the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines...

The ubiquitously expressed Na(+)/H(+) exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1) functions as a major intracellular pH (pH(i)) regulatory mechanism in many cell types, and in some tissues its activity may contribute to ischemic injury. In the present study, cortical astrocyte cultures from wild-type (NHE1(+/+)) and NHE1-deficient (NHE1(-/-)) mice were used to investigate the role of NHE1 in pH(i) recovery and ...

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a form of inherited mental retardation in humans that results from expansion of a CGG repeat in the Fmr1 gene. Recent studies suggest a role of astrocytes in neuronal development. However, the mechanisms involved in the regulation process of astrocytes from FXS remain unclear. In this study, we found that astrocytes derived from a Fragile X model, the Fmr1 knockout (...

To examine the diversity of astrocytes in the human brain, we immunostained surgical specimens of temporal cortex and hippocampus and autopsy brains for CD44, a plasma membrane protein and extracellular matrix receptor. CD44 antibodies outline the details of astrocyte morphology to a degree not possible with glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) antibodies. CD44+ astrocytes could be subdivided...

BACKGROUND There is an increasing interest in the role of astrocytes contributing to the intrinsic bioremediation of ischemic brain injury. The purpose of this study was to disclose the effects and mechanism of midazolam (MDZ) on the proliferation and apoptosis of astrocytes under oxygen glucose deprivation (OGD) condition. METHODS The astrocytes were assigned randomly into four groups: contr...

Linde CI, Baryshnikov SG, Mazzocco-Spezzia A, Golovina VA. Dysregulation of Ca signaling in astrocytes from mice lacking amyloid precursor protein. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 300: C1502–C1512, 2011. First published March 2, 2011; doi:10.1152/ajpcell.00379.2010.—The relationship between altered metabolism of the amyloidprecursor protein (APP) and Alzheimer’s disease is well established but the ph...