Astrocyte glutamine synthetase: pivotal in health and disease.

Influence of Striatal Astrocyte Dysfunction on Locomotor Activity in Dopamine-Depleted Rats

Introduction: Astrocyte dysfunction is the common pathology resulting in failure of astrocyte-neuron interaction in neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s Disease (PD). To date, only few experimental models of selective ablation of astrocytes are known. The aim of present study was to evaluate the effect of striatal injections of selective glial toxin L-aminoadipic acid (L-AA) on the loco...

Biochemical and molecular analysis of glutamine synthetase gene in brassica napus L.

Effect of glutamine synthetase inhibition on astrocyte swelling and altered astroglial protein expression during hyperammonemia in rats.

Inhibition of glutamine synthesis reduces astrocyte swelling and associated physiological abnormalities during acute ammonium acetate infusion in anesthetized rats. We tested the hypothesis that inhibition of glutamine accumulation during more prolonged ammonium acetate infusion in unanesthetized rats reduces cortical astrocyte swelling and immunohistochemical changes in astrocytic proteins. Ra...

Effects of Transforming Growth Factor - , 8 on Murine Astrocyte Glutamine Synthetase Activity

Cytokines have been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of brain diseases in which neurological dysfunction has been attributed to a change in amino acid neurotransmitter metabolism. In the present in vitro study, we investigated the effects ofcytokines on astrocyte glutamine synthetase (GS) activity and subsequently on N-methyl-D-asparate (NMDA) receptor-mediated neurotoxicity. Proinfla...

Dexamethasone enhances glutamine synthetase activity and reduces N-methyl-D-aspartate neurotoxicity in mixed cultures of neurons and astrocytes

Astrocytes are claimed to protect neurons against excitotoxicity by clearing glutamate from the extracellular space and rapidly converting it into glutamine. Glutamine, is then released into the extracellular medium, taken up by neurons and transformed back into glutamate which is then stored into synaptic vesicles. Glutamine synthetase (GS), the key enzyme that governs this glutamate/glutamine...