Abstract:

To investigate the time-course effect of glutamate on dopaminergic neurons injury in mouse mesencephalic dissociated culture, and  elucidate  the effect of the neurotoxicity of glutamate on dopamingergic neurons injury in Parkinson’〖KG-*3〗s  disease(PD) model.  Methods Mouse embroys of 14 d were used to make mecsencephalic dissociated culture. The experiment was divided into control group and glutamate group.The cultures were treated with 500  μmol·L^-1 of glutamate for 15 min on the 10th DIV,and stained by TH immunocytochemistry 2,4,6,24 and 48 h after treatment. The numbers of dopaminergic neurons and the average neurite numbers per dopaminergic neuron were evaluated by counting under microscope. Results The TH-ir neurons were counted and there were 778.0± 18.6 dopaminergic neurons per well in control group; there were 314.0±15.4,298.0±19.1,307.0±18.5,and 323.0± 23.8 dopaminergic neurons per well respectively at 2,4,6,24 and 48 h in glutamate group,the TH-ir neurons in glutamate group were significantly reduced compared with  control group(P<0.05).The average numbers of neurites per dopaminergic neuron were 3.440±0.106 in control group,2.24 0± 0.105,2.390±0.103,3.070±0.105,3.420± 0.987 and 3.420±0.923 respectively at 2,4,6,24 and 48 h in glutamate goroup. There were a significantly lower neurite numbers 2 and 4 h after glutamate treatment,as compared with all the other groups (P<0.05). Conclusion The loss of dopaminergic neurons induced by glutamate is caused by a relative acute neural death and is irreversible. But
 the number of neurite and length of neurites are gradually improved as the recovery period is prolonged.

Key words: glutamate, Parkinson’s , disease;mesenceph