Glutamate-aspartate transporter 1 attenuates oxygen-glucose deprivation-induced injury by promoting glutamate metabolism in primary cortical neurons.

Ischemic stroke is a common cerebral disease. However, the treatment for the disease is limited. Daurian ground squirrel (GS; Spermophilus dauricus), a hibernating mammalian species, is highly tolerant to ischemia. In the present study, GS neurons in a non-hibernating state were found to be more resistant to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), an ischemic model in vitro. We leveraged the differences in the endurance capacity of GS and rats to investigate the mechanisms of resistance to ischemia in GS neurons. We first identified glutamate-aspartate transporter 1 (GLAST) as a cytoprotective factor that contributed to tolerance against OGD injury of GS neurons. The expression of GLAST in GS neurons was much higher than that in rat neurons. Overexpression of GLAST rescued viability in rat neurons, and GS neurons exhibited decreased viability following GLAST knockdown under OGD conditions. Mechanistically, more glutamate was transported into neurons after GLAST overexpression and served as substrates for ATP production. Furthermore, eukaryotic transcription initiation factor 4E binding protein 1 was downregulated by GLAST to rescue neuronal viability. Our findings not only revealed an important molecular mechanism underlying the survival of hibernating mammals but also suggested that neuronal GLAST may be a potential target for ischemic stroke therapy.

Sensitive determination of aliphatic amines by high-performance liquid chromatography with a new fluorogenic probe 3-(4-fluorinebenzoyl)-2-quinoline carboxaldehyde.

A new fluorogenic reagent 3-(4-fluorinebenzoyl)-2-quinoline carboxaldehyde (FBQCA) has been synthesized and used as a derivatizing reagent for the determination of aliphatic amines with HPLC. The reagent is nonfluorescent, but forms highly fluorescent isoindole upon the reaction with primary amines in alkaline medium. Eleven amine derivatives were baseline separated in 8 min using a gradient elution on a C(8) column and detected with fluorescence detection at lambda(ex)/lambda(em) = 480/546 nm. The detection limits were in the range of 0.5-2 nM (S/N = 3). The proposed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of aliphatic amines in food and environmental samples, including white wine, soybean oil, soil, and tap water with satisfactory recoveries in the range of 94-106%.