Hyponatremia propitiates and increases susceptibility to seizure episodes. In vitro, hyposmolarity induces hyperexcitability and epileptiform activity and increases the amplitude of excitatory postsynaptic potentials. Synaptic (increased glutamate vesicular release) and non-synaptic (swelling-induced extracellular space shrinkage and ephaptic interactions) might be responsible for the hyposmola...

Regulatory volume decrease (RVD) is a protective mechanism that allows mammalian cells to restore their volume when exposed to a hypotonic environment. A key component of RVD is the release of K(+), Cl(-), and organic osmolytes, such as taurine, which then drives osmotic water efflux. Previous experiments have indicated that caveolin-1, a coat protein of caveolae microdomains in the plasma memb...

Urea and methylamines, such as betaine, are among the major organic osmotic effectors accumulated by organisms under hyperosmotic (high NaCl) stress; the mammalian renal medulla also accumulates such compounds in antidiuresis. Studies on isolated proteins show that urea generally destabilizes protein structure, whereas methylamines are generally stabilizers capable of offsetting the effects of ...

Experimental models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) provide a useful tool for understanding the cerebral metabolic changes induced by this pathological condition. Here, we report on the time course of changes in cerebral metabolites after TBI and its correlation with early brain morphological changes using a combination of high-resolution proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H MRS) and ma...

When massively expressed in bacteria, recombinant proteins often tend to misfold and accumulate as soluble and insoluble nonfunctional aggregates. A general strategy to improve the native folding of recombinant proteins is to increase the cellular concentration of viscous organic compounds, termed osmolytes, or of molecular chaperones that can prevent aggregation and can actively scavenge and c...

Amyloid-beta (Abeta) assembly into fibrillar structures is a defining characteristic of Alzheimer's disease that is initiated by a conformational transition from random coil to beta-sheet and a nucleation-dependent aggregation process. We have investigated the role of organic osmolytes as chemical chaperones in the amyloid pathway using glycerol to mimic the effects of naturally occurring molec...

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