Stimulation of protein tyrosine phosphorylation participates in delayed neuronal death in ischemic hippocampus. Ohtsuki, Toshiho, Masayasu Matsumoto, Kazuo Kitagawa, Takuma Mabuchi, Kenji Mandai, Kohji Matsushita, Keisuke Kuwabara, Masafumi Tagaya, Satoshi Ogawa, Hirokazu Ueda, Takenobu Kamada, and Takehiko Yanagihara. First Department of Medicine and Department of Neurology, Osaka University Medical School, Osaka 565, Japan
APStracts 3:0129C, 1996.
Glutamate triggers neuronal degeneration following ischemia/reperfusion in the brain. However, the details of intracellular signal transduction that propagate cell death remain unknown. The present work investigated whether protein tyrosine phosphorylation mediates neuronal death in the ischemic brain. Transient forebrain ischemia for 5- 10 min in Mongolian gerbils or intoxication of glutamate analog (kainic acid, 12 mg/kg) in Sprague -Dawley rats caused neuronal death selectively in the hippocampus 2-4 days or 1 day later, respectively. Under these conditions, 160, 115, 105, 92, 85 kDa proteins showed a significant increase in tyrosyl residue phosphorylation selectively in the hippocampus 3-12 h after ischemia or 4-8 h after kainic acid-induced seizures. Tyrosine kinases, including pp60c-src, were activated without a change of tyrosine phosphatases. Administration of radicicol, a selective inhibitor of tyrosine kinases, attenuated stimulation of tyrosine phosphorylation and hippocampal degeneration after ischemia or kainic acid injection. The results suggest that protein tyrosine phosphorylation might propagate delayed neuronal death in the mature hippocampus through glutamate overload after ischemia/reperfusion.

Received 13 November 1995; accepted in final form 26 March 1996.
APS Manuscript Number C684-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Cell Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 1 May 96