TY - JOUR T1 - Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Inhibition Protects against Excitotoxic Neuronal Injury in the Rat Brain JF - The Journal of Neuroscience JO - J. Neurosci. SP - 901 LP - 908 DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4289-06.2007 VL - 27 IS - 4 AU - Anna-Leena Sokka AU - Noora Putkonen AU - Giuseppa Mudo AU - Evgeny Pryazhnikov AU - Sami Reijonen AU - Leonard Khiroug AU - Natale Belluardo AU - Dan Lindholm AU - Laura Korhonen Y1 - 2007/01/24 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/4/901.abstract N2 - Elevated brain glutamate with activation of neuronal glutamate receptors accompanies neurological disorders, such as epilepsy and brain trauma. However, the mechanisms by which excitotoxicity triggers neuronal injury are not fully understood. We have studied the glutamate receptor agonist kainic acid (KA) inducing seizures and excitotoxic cell death. KA caused the disintegration of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane in hippocampal neurons and ER stress with the activation of the ER proteins Bip, Chop, and caspase-12. Salubrinal, inhibiting eIF2α (eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 subunit α) dephosphorylation, significantly reduced KA-induced ER stress and neuronal death in vivo and in vitro. KA-induced rise in intracellular calcium was not affected by Salubrinal. The results show that ER responses are essential parts of excitotoxicity mediated by glutamate receptor activation and that Salubrinal decreases neuronal death in vivo. Inhibition of ER stress by small molecular compounds may be beneficial for treatment of various neuronal injuries and brain disorders. ER -