[Inhibition of glutamate uptake in rat brain synaptosome by methylmercury]

The effect of methylmercury on the glutamate uptake in rat brain synaptosomes were studied in vitro by using a high affinity uptake test. The result showed that methylmercury(1 x 10(-9) -1 x 10(-4) mol/L) could decrease 3H-L-glutamate uptake in rat cerebral cortex, hippocampus, striatum and cerebellum synaptosome by 0.7%-74.4%, 7.5%-91.1%, 1.4%-76.6% and 4.4%-77.0%, respectively, in a dose-dependent manner, and their IC50 were 7, 9, 3.6, 2.2 and 4.3 x 10(-6) mol/L, respectively. It suggested that methylmercury could obviously inhibit glutamate uptake in the synaptosomes of rat brain.