BACKGROUND The glial glutamate transporter GLT-1 is abundantly expressed in astrocytes and is crucial for glutamate removal from the synaptic cleft. Decreases in glutamate uptake activity and expression of spinal glutamate transporters are reported in animal models of pathological pain. However, the lack of available specific inhibitors and/or activators for GLT-1 makes it difficult to determin...

Recent evidence suggests that the predominant astrocyte glutamate transporter, GLT-1/ Excitatory Amino Acid Transporter 2 (EAAT2) is associated with mitochondria. We used primary cultures of mouse astrocytes to assess co-localization of GLT-1 with mitochondria, and tested whether the interaction was dependent on neurons, actin polymerization or the kinesin adaptor, TRAK2. Mouse primary astrocyt...

The glutamate transporter GLT-1 is critical for the maintenance of low interstitial glutamate concentrations. Loss of GLT-1 is commonly observed in neurological disorders, including temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Despite the hypothesis that targeting the mechanisms of GLT-1 deficiency may be a novel strategy for treating drug-resistant epilepsy, the underlying molecular cascade remains largely u...

To address the question of the relative contributions of glial and neuronal glutamate transport in the vertebrate CNS, we studied the distribution of forebrain glutamate transporters in rat hippocampal microcultures, a preparation in which physiological functions of glutamate transporters have been well characterized. Two of the three transporters, GLAST (EAAT1) and EAAC1 (EAAT3), are localized...

BACKGROUND Epidemiological studies suggest that mushroom intake is inversely correlated with gastric, gastrointestinal and breast cancers. We have recently demonstrated anticancer and anti-inflammatory activity of triterpene extract isolated from mushroom Ganoderma lucidum (GLT). The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether GLT prevents colitis-associated carcinogenesis in mice. METHO...

The glutamate transporter GLT-1 from Rattus norvegicus was expressed at high level in baby hamster kidney (BHK-21) cells by the Semliki Forest Virus expression system. We examined the expressed GLT-1 in the plasma membrane and found that the transporter accumulates in detergent-insoluble lipid-protein assemblies. Freeze-fracture, immunogold labeling, and electron microscopy revealed that GLT-1 ...

The majority of glutamate released during neurotransmission is uptaken into astrocytes through the glial glutamate transporter GLT-1, by which extracellular glutamate is inactivated. In this study, we determined whether GLT-1 mediated the astrocyte regulation of the cell fate of neural stem/progenitor cells (NSCs) by glutamate reuptake. The astrocytes stimulated neuronal lineage selection but i...

GLT-1, GLAST, and EAAC1 are high-affinity, Na(+)-dependent glutamate transporters identified in rat forebrain. The expression of these transporter subtypes was characterized in three preparations: undifferentiated rat cortical astrocyte cultures, astrocytes cocultured with cortical neurons, and astrocyte cultures differentiated with dibutyryl cyclic AMP (dBcAMP). The undifferentiated astrocyte ...

Studies have shown that administration of the β-lactam antibiotic ceftriaxone (CEF) attenuates ethanol consumption and cocaine seeking behavior as well as prevents ethanol-induced downregulation of glutamate transporter 1 (GLT-1) expression in central reward brain regions. However, it is not known if these effects are compound-specific. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of two o...

The glutamate transporter GLT-1 is expressed in astrocytes of the mature brain and spinal cord. In the present study, we examined its expression in the developing mouse spinal cord. By in situ hybridization, 35S-labeled antisense oligonucleotide probes for GLT-1 mRNA consistently labeled the mantle zone/gray matter from embryonic day 11 through the adult stage. However, immunohistochemistry wit...