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Volume 17, Number 14,
Issue of July 15, 1997
pp. 5316-5326
Copyright ©1997 Society for Neuroscience
Thrombin Induces Apoptosis in Cultured Neurons and Astrocytes via
a Pathway Requiring Tyrosine Kinase and RhoA Activities
Received Feb. 28, 1997; revised April 29, 1997; accepted May 5, 1997.
Frances M. Donovan1,
Christian J. Pike2,
Carl W. Cotman2, and
Dennis D. Cunningham1
1 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics,
and 2 Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, University of
California, Irvine, California 92717
Thrombin activity is a factor in acute CNS trauma and may
contribute to such chronic neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's disease. Thrombin is a multifunctional serine protease that catalyses the final steps in blood coagulation. However, increasing evidence indicates that thrombin also elicits a variety of cellular and inflammatory responses, including responses from neural cells. Most
recently, high concentrations of thrombin were shown to cause cell
death in both astrocyte and hippocampal neuron cultures. The purpose of
this study was to determine the mechanisms underlying thrombin-induced
cell death. Our data show that thrombin appears to cause apoptosis as
evidenced by cleavage of DNA into oligonucleosomal-sized fragments,
fragmentation of nuclei, and prevention of death by inhibition of
protein synthesis. Synthetic peptides that directly activate the
thrombin receptor also induced apoptosis, indicating that
thrombin-induced cell death occurred via activation of the thrombin
receptor. The signal transduction cascade involves tyrosine and
serine/threonine kinases and an intact actin cytoskeleton. Additional
study revealed the involvement of the small GTP-binding protein RhoA.
Thrombin induced RhoA activity in both astrocytes and hippocampal
neurons, and inhibition of RhoA activity with exoenzyme C3 attenuated
cell death, indicating that thrombin activation of RhoA was necessary
for thrombin-induced cell death. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors blocked
thrombin induction of RhoA, indicating that tyrosine kinase activity
was required upstream of RhoA. These data suggest a sequential linkage
of cellular events from which we propose a model for the second
messenger cascade induced by thrombin in neural cells that can lead to
apoptosis.
Key words:
thrombin;
apoptosis;
neurons;
astrocytes;
RhoA;
receptor;
Alzheimer's disease;
cerebrovascular injury;
tyrosine kinase;
serine/threonine.
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