Elsevier

Neuropharmacology

Volume 35, Issue 3, March 1996, Pages 249-256
Neuropharmacology

Opposite effects of TGF-β1 on rapidly- and slowly-triggered excitotoxic injury

https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3908(96)00001-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) has been shown to protect central neurons against diverse metabolic and excitotoxic challenges. We induced different types of excitotoxic injury on cultured rat hippocampal neurons and investigated TGF-β1 for its protective activity. TGF-β1 (0.3–10 ng/ml) effectively blocked excitotoxic injury of cultured rat hippocampal neurons induced by short-term exposure to the selective agonist N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA; 100 μM, 20 min). Excitotoxic injury caused by long-term exposure to the non-NMDA agonists kainate (50 μM, 24 hr) or α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA; 10 μM, 24 hr) caused a similar reduction in neuronal viability. However, treatments with TGF-β1 (0.1–10 ng/ml) actually potentiated this slowly-triggered excitotoxic injury. Cultures of rat cerebellar neurons enriched for Purkinje cells have been shown to express AMPA/kainate receptors with significant permeability to Ca2+ and to be uniquely sensitive to non-NMDA receptor-mediated neurotoxicity. In this culture system, short-term exposure to kainate (100 μM; 30 min) in Na+-free extracellular solution caused a pronounced decrease in neuronal viability, and this toxicity was also significantly reduced in cultures treated with TGF-β1 (10 ng/ml). These results suggest that TGF-β1 has the capacity to protect neurons against rapidly-triggered, Ca2+-mediated excitotoxic injury, but significantly potentiates slowly-triggered types of excitotoxic injury. This complex action of TGF-β1 could have important implications for the use of TGF-βs and related growth factors in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

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