The excitotoxin domoic acid (DOM) acts at both kainic acid (KA)- and α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate (AMPA)-sensitive glutamate receptors. Clinical reports suggest that elderly people are hypersensitive to the neurological effects of DOM intoxication. Young, but not aged hippocampal slices which have been preconditioned with low concentrations of DOM or KA exhibit an acute �tolerance� to subsequent high doses of DOM or KA; application of the selective AMPA agonist fluorowillardiine (FW) fails to induce tolerance to excitotoxins. The aim of this study was to further investigate the molecular mechanism of tolerance induction in vitro, and to examine the ability of compounds to cross-condition against excitotoxic insult. In addition, in vivo techniques were used to explore the age-related susceptibility to the neurological effects of DOM and acute in vivo tolerance induction. Here we show that low doses of �classical� ionotropic kainate receptor agonists and AMPA/kainate receptor antagonists act as net inverse agonists at G-protein coupled receptors, reducing constitutive GTPase activity by up to 73% in the young hippocampus. Further evidence that inverse agonist activity at G-protein coupled receptors is responsible for acute in vitro tolerance induction by kainate receptor agonists and antagonists was also identified because preconditioning with the AMPA receptor antagonist GYKI-52466 significantly inhibited KA-induced population spike suppression in in vitro hippocampal brain slices from both Sprague-Dawley and Wistar rats. The broad-spectrum protein kinase inhibitor H-7 partially blocked tolerance induction when preconditioning occurs in the presence of suggesting that protein kinases are one of the downstream effectors of this phenomenon. Tolerance-inducing compounds are also capable of cross-conditioning against the effects of other excitotoxins; with 250 nM FW suppressed population spike area by only 62.8 � 10.0% at 30 minutes following a 500 nM KA preconditioning dose, compared to almost complete spike suppression within twenty minutes in naive hippocampal brain slices. In vivo experiments indicated that despite aged animals exhibiting significantly higher cumulative behavioural scores in response to i.p. DOM (1 mg kg⁻�; young = 102 � 9, aged = 179 � 19; P < 0.01) in response to DOM after two hours), and that this age-related supersensitivity is due to impaired renal clearance (young serum DOM = 41.5 � 30.3 ng ml⁻�, aged = 813.3 � 804.4 ng ml⁻� following administration of 1 mg kg⁻� DOM after 2.5 hours earlier). Tolerance to high doses of DOM was induced within a matter of minutes following i.p. preconditioning by low dose DOM in vivo. This was evidenced by severe seizure manifestations being almost absent in both young and aged animals, despite occurring frequently in naive animals. Therefore, this study concludes that tolerance is induced by kainate receptor ligands in vitro and in vivo within a matter of minutes, and is the result of a reduction in the turnover of G-protein coupled receptors and protein kinase activation. In addition, the increased sensitivity of aged rats to in vivo DOM is a result of elevated serum DOM concentrations most likely resulting from impaired renal clearance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/266509 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Hesp, Blair, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Blair Hesp |
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