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标题：Possible Involvement of DNA Methylation and Protective Effect of Zebularine on Neuronal Cell Death after Glutamate Excitotoxity
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作者：Mayumi Asada ; Hideki Hayashi ; Norio Takagi 等
期刊名称：Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
印刷版ISSN：0918-6158
电子版ISSN：1347-5215
出版年度：2022
卷号：45
期号：6
页码：770-779
DOI：10.1248/bpb.b22-00147
语种：English
出版社：The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan
摘要：Neuronal cell death after cerebral ischemia consists various steps including glutamate excitotoxity. Excessive Ca2+ influx through the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, which is one of the ionotropic glutamate receptors, plays a central role in neuronal cell death after cerebral ischemia. We previously reported that DNA methylation is transiently increased in neurons during ischemic injury and that this aberrant DNA methylation is accompanied by neuronal cell death. Therefore, we performed the present experiments on glutamate excitotoxicity to gain further insight into DNA methylation involvement in the neuronal cell death. We demonstrated that knockdown of DNA methyltransferase (DNMT)1, DNMT3a, or DNMT3b gene in Neuro2a cells was performed to examine which DNMTs were more important for neuronal cell death after glutamate excitotoxicity. Although we confirmed a decrease in the levels of the target DNMT protein after small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection, the Neuro2a cells were not protected from injury by transfection with siRNA for each DNMT. We next revealed that the pharmacological inhibitor of DNMTs protected against glutamate excitotoxicity in Neuro2a cells and also in primary cultured cortical neurons. This protective effect was associated with a decrease in the number of 5-methylcytosine (5 mC)-positive cells under glutamate excitotoxicity. In addition, the increased level of cleaved caspase-3 was also reduced by a DNMT inhibitor. Our results suggest the possibility that at least 2 or all DNMTs functionally would cooperate to activate DNA methylation after glutamate excitotoxicity and that inhibition of DNA methylation in neurons after cerebral ischemia might become a strategy to reduce the neuronal injury.
关键词：DNA methylation;DNA methyltransferase;zebularine;glutamate excitotoxicity;neuronal cell death