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Increased expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha in the rat hippocampus after acute homocysteine administration
Seong Hee Kim1, Kwangsoo Kim1, Ji Hyun Ahn2
1Departments of Neurology, Kosin University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
Background And Purpose:
This paper evaluated the effect of acute homocysteine administration on inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) expression and neuronal apoptosis in the rat hippocampus and investigated the effects of vitamin C treatment on homocysteine-induced inflammation and neuronal death.
Methods:
Subjects were three-week-old, male Sprague-Dawley rats. Rats for the control group, we injected saline solution into the rats' abdominal cavities for one week. Rats in the second group received 1 injection of homocysteine (11 mmol/kg) into their abdominal cavities after 1 week of saline solution administration. For the third group, we injected the rats with vitamin C (100 mg/kg) for a week, followed by 1 injection of homocysteine. The hippocampi were stained with an anti-TNF-α antibody, and apoptosis was evaluated using the TUNEL staining method.
Results:
The homocysteine-injected rats had strong TNF-α expression in every hippocampal region. Vitamin C significantly reduced TNF-α expression in the hippocampus's CA1 region. Acute homocysteine administration did not cause apoptosis in the hippocampus.
Conclusions:
The pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-α may mediate elevated homocysteine levels' contributions to inflammatory reactions, and vitamin C has some protective effect on inflammatory reactions in the CA1 hippocampal region.
