PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Allen S. Mandir
AU  - Marc F. Poitras
AU  - Adam R. Berliner
AU  - William J. Herring
AU  - Daniel B. Guastella
AU  - Alicia Feldman
AU  - Guy G. Poirier
AU  - Zhao-Qi Wang
AU  - Ted M. Dawson
AU  - Valina L. Dawson
TI  - NMDA But Not Non-NMDA Excitotoxicity is Mediated by Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-21-08005.2000
DP  - 2000 Nov 01
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 8005--8011
VI  - 20
IP  - 21
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/20/21/8005.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/20/21/8005.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2000 Nov 01; 20
AB  - Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP-1), a nuclear enzyme that facilitates DNA repair, may be instrumental in acute neuronal cell death in a variety of insults including, cerebral ischemia,1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-induced parkinsonism, and CNS trauma. Excitotoxicity is thought to underlie these and other toxic models of neuronal death. Different glutamate agonists may trigger different downstream pathways toward neurotoxicity. We examine the role of PARP-1 in NMDA- and non-NMDA-mediated excitotoxicity. NMDA and non-NMDA agonists were stereotactically delivered into the striatum of mice lacking PARP-1 and control mice in acute (48 hr) and chronic (3 week) toxicity paradigms. Mice lacking PARP-1 are highly resistant to the excitoxicity induced by NMDA but are as equally susceptible to AMPA excitotoxicity as wild-type mice. Restoring PARP-1 protein in mice lacking PARP-1 by viral transfection restored susceptibility to NMDA, supporting the requirement of PARP-1 in NMDA neurotoxicity. Furthermore, Western blot analyses demonstrate that PARP-1 is activated after NMDA delivery but not after AMPA administration. Consistent with the theory that nitric oxide (NO) and peroxynitrite are prominent in NMDA-induced neurotoxicity, PARP-1 was not activated in mice lacking the gene for neuronal NO synthase after NMDA administration. These results suggest a selective role of PARP-1 in glutamate excitoxicity, and strategies of inhibiting PARP-1 in NMDA-mediated neurotoxicity may offer substantial acute and chronic neuroprotection.