Logo image
Hypoxic Preconditioning Alleviates Ethanol Neurotoxicity: The Involvement of Autophagy
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Hypoxic Preconditioning Alleviates Ethanol Neurotoxicity: The Involvement of Autophagy

Haiping Wang, Kimberly A Bower, Jacqueline A Frank, Mei Xu and Jia Luo
Neurotoxicity research, Vol.24(4), pp.472-477
04/09/2013
DOI: 10.1007/s12640-013-9390-7
PMCID: PMC3739993
PMID: 23568540
url
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/3739993View
Open Access

Abstract

Ethanol is a neuroteratogen and neurodegeneration is the most devastating consequence of developmental exposure to ethanol. A sublethal preconditioning has been proposed as a neuroprotective strategy against several central nervous system neurodegenerative diseases. We have recently demonstrated that autophagy is a protective response to alleviate ethanol toxicity. A modest hypoxic preconditioning (1 % oxygen) did not cause neurotoxicity but induced autophagy (Tzeng et al. Free Radic Biol Med 49: 839–846, 2010 ). We, therefore, hypothesize that the modest hypoxic preconditioning may offer a protection against ethanol-induced neurotoxicity. We showed here that the modest hypoxic preconditioning (1 % oxygen) for 8 h significantly alleviated ethanol-induced death of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. Under the normoxia condition, cell viability in ethanol-exposed cultures (316 mg/dl for 48 h) was 49 ± 6 % of untreated controls; however, with hypoxic preconditioning, cell viability in the ethanol-exposed group increased to 78 ± 7 % of the controls ( p  < 0.05; n  = 3). Bafilomycin A1, an inhibitor of autophagosome and lysosome fusion, blocked hypoxic preconditioning-mediated protection. Similarly, inhibition of autophagic initiation by wortmannin also eliminated hypoxic preconditioning-mediated protection. In contrast, activation of autophagy by rapamycin further enhanced neuroprotection caused by hypoxic preconditioning. Taken together, the results confirm that autophagy is a protective response against ethanol neurotoxicity and the modest hypoxic preconditioning can offer neuroprotection by activating autophagic pathways.
Biomedical and Life Sciences Biomedicine Cell Biology Neurobiology Neurochemistry Neurology Neurosciences Original Article Pharmacology/Toxicology

Details

Metrics

Logo image