glutamate toxicity studies

From: charles wymond symes (c.symes@auckland.ac.nz)
Date: Sun Oct 29 2000 - 23:03:11 EST


Hello everyone,

I am a lab technician with no flow cytometry experience whatsoever. I
am hoping to develop a simple bioassay to quantitate glutamate toxicity
in differentiated P19 cells.
Differentiated P19 cells express functional NMDA receptors. The ligand
for this receptor is glutamate. however at high levels glutamate acts
as a neurotoxin and the resulting influx of calcium through the
receptor channel is fatal to the cell. The assay I am hoping to develop
will quantitatively examine the protective effects of selective NMDA
receptor channel blockers. I plan to use facscan analysis to determine
the percentage of dead cells within populations of cells that have or
have not been treated with the blockers prior to addition of a fatal
dose of glutamate. I could use TUNEL staining or some other marker of
cell death but this is quite a long-winded affair due to the
involvement of several antibody incubation steps. Is there a quicker
alternative.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope some of you have some
ideas,

Wymond Symes


----------------------

Charles Wymond Symes
CNS Gene Therapy Centre
Dept. Molecular Medicine
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
ph 3737599 xtn 4482
fax 3737492



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Mar 10 2001 - 19:31:36 EST