In traditional Chinese medicine, Ligusticum wallichii (Chuan Xiong) and its bioactive ingredient, tetramethylpyrazine (TMP), have been used to treat cardiovascular diseases and to relieve various neurological symptoms, such as those associated with ischemic injury. In the present study, we investigated whether ultrasound (US) exposure could enhance the protective effect of TMP against cerebral ...

Maize ribosome-inactivating protein is classified as a class III or an atypical RNA N-glycosidase. It is synthesized as an inactive precursor with a 25-amino acid internal inactivation region, which is removed in the active form. As the first structural example of this class of proteins, crystals of the precursor and the active form were diffracted to 2.4 and 2.5 A, respectively. The two protei...

Stroke is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developed countries and has increased incidence due to progression of average population age. Pharmalogical and mechanical reperfusion therapy, as primary therapeutic approaches, are only applicable to less than 10% of patients with a 50-70% efficacy. but about 90%of patients are severe restricted to these treatments. Glutamate excitotoxic...

Background: Glutamate is essential to learning and memory as an excitatory neurotransmitter. This study evaluated the atrazine effect on the hippocampus and examined the mitigative role of avocado oil against the neuronal degeneration and behavioral deficits in Wistar rats. Methods: Fifty adult male Wistar rats were divided into four groups of ten. Group 1 (controls) received 0.5 ml distilled ...

To determine the pathogenicity of Acanthamoeba spp. isolated in Korea and to develop a isoenzymatic maker, the mortality rate of infected mice, in vitro cytotoxicity against target cells and isoenzyme band patterns were observed. Five isolates of Acanthamoeba spp. (YM-2, YM-3, YM-4, YM-5, and YM-7) were used in this study as well as three reference Acanthamoeba spp. (A. culbertsoni, A. hatchett...

Introduction: Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is one of the commonest food additives in modern nutrition. Recent studies showed the modulatory effect of MSG on rat thymocyte apoptosis in vivo and under in vitro conditions. However, the influence of MSG on thymocyte proliferation is largely unknown. Material and methods: We evaluated the effect of increased MSG concentrations on thymocyte proliferati...

Addiction is a major problem of society. The existing evidences have shown that parental addiction impairs CNS development, learning, and memory. With respect to the role of glutamate in dentate gyrus on learning and memory, in this study, the effect of parental addiction to morphine on extracellular glutamate concentration in dentate gyrus was evaluated. For this purpose, male and female rats ...

background: there are many reports regarding to effects of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (g-csf) and stem cell factor (scf)alone in liver repair .but conflicting data have been reported regarding the role of growth factors such as g-csf and scf in the liver regeneration system. also, there is not such data regarding to effects of co-administration both of g-csf and scf in the liver dama...

Objective(s): The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of chloride channel protein 2 (ClC-2) in glutamate-induced apoptosis in the retinal ganglion cell line (RGC-5). Materials and Methods: RGC-5 cells were treated with 1 mM glutamate for 24 hr. The expression of ClC-2, Bax, and Bcl-2 was detected by western blot analysis. Cell survival and apoptosis were measured by 3-(4,5-dimeth...