Turkish Neurosurgery 2011 , Vol 21 , Num 3
Neuroprotective Effect of ACE Inhibitors in Glutamate - Induced Neurotoxicity: Rat Neuron Culture Study
Goksin SENGUL1, Suleyman COSKUN1, Murteza CAKIR1, Mustafa Kemal COBAN1, Fatih SARUHAN2, Ahmet HACIMUFTUOGLU2
1Ataturk University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, Erzurum, Turkey
2Ataturk University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, Erzurum, Turkey
DOI : 10.5137/1019-5149.JTN.4313-11.0 AIM: Glutamate is known to be neurotoxic at concentrations of 10-6M and 10-7M. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors can be assumed to be neuroprotective as they open the mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate-sensitive potassium channels by inhibiting the degradation of bradykinin. In this study, we investigated whether the ACE inhibitors captopril, ramipril and perindopril have protective effects in glutamate-induced neurotoxicity in newborn rat cerebral cortex cell cultures.

MATERIAL and METHODS: Viability tests were performed among ACE inhibitors by constituting groups of control and 10-7M and 10-6M glutamate doses in newborn rat cortex cultures.

RESULTS: While the mean viable cell number was 0.47±0.06 in the control group, it was 0.37±0.03 in the group exposed to 10-7M glutamate (p<0.05) and 0.37±0.01 in the group exposed to 10-6M glutamate (p<0.05). Captopril was used at a dose of 10 μM, perindopril was used at a dose of 1 μM, and ramipril was used at a dose of 30 μM against 10-7M and 10-6M glutamate. Ramipril and perindopril reversed the toxicity against 10-6M glutamate (p<0.05). The neuroprotective properties of captopril, perindopril and ramipril were not found to be statistically significant against 10-7M glutamate at the doses mentioned above.

CONCLUSION: Data obtained from this study indicate that ramipril and perindopril can prevent 10-6M glutamate-induced neurotoxicity. Keywords : ACE inhibitors, Glutamate, Neuroprotection, Neurotoxicity

Corresponding author : Goksin Sengul, goksinsengul@gmail.com