The Effective Dose of Methamphetamine on the Amount of Glutamine in Activated Astrocytes

Objective Astrocytes participate in the inflammatory responses of the central nervous system like Alzheimer s disease (AD). In this review, we will present an overview the role of activated astrocytes and amount of Glutamine, and relations between the effective dose of methamphetamine (METH), the apoptosis, cell cycle, and glutamine pathways in the activated astrocyte.Materials and Methods: In this study, the activated astrocyte cells (astrocyte exposed to Aβ fibrils were cultured and exposed to a low dose of METH. The glutamine was assayed by HPLC, the flow cytometry method for apoptosis, and cell cycle and BAX, BCL-X expression were evaluated by real-time PCR.Results: Data showed that the amount of glutamine was increased, and the value of late & early apoptosis was reduced in the treatment groups, and the amount of necrosis was decreased in the prevention group in comparison to control. It was also revealed through cell cycle analysis thatG2 in the prevention group was reduced in comparison to control, and the expression of BAX, BAX/BCL-X, and BCL-X in both prevention and treatment groups, was decreased and increased respectively compared with control.Conclusion: These findings suggest that perhaps the effective dose of METH can reduce the amount of apoptosis and the expression of BAX and increased the expression of BCL-X. The cells are also arrested in the G2 phase and can raise the amount of extracellular glutamine, which has a protective role in neuron cells. These findings may provide a new perspective for treatment of AD.

Keywords:

Alzheimer’s disease , Apoptosis , Astrocytes , Cell cycle , Glutamine , Methamphetamine