We have shown previously that in vitro @entity63 could induce apoptosis in primary culture of astrocytes. In this paper we demonstrate that astrocytes in culture could undergo apoptosis during in vitro incubation postischemia. We also measured the changes of phosphorylated @entity1366 (p- @entity1366 ) and phosphorylated @entity584 (p- @entity584 ) in order to determine whether these two pathways play a role in apoptosis. After 4 h in vitro @entity63 incubation of cultured astrocytes, a limited amount of nuclear condensation was demonstrated by @entity5956 staining. When @entity63 incubation was halted and the cultures transferred to standard normoxic incubation (postischemia) conditions, DNA fragmentation and apoptosis were demonstrated by TUNEL and DNA laddering analysis. TUNEL-positive astrocytes began to appear at 6 h postischemia and increased in number from 12 h postischemia. Western blot analysis showed that both p- @entity1366 and p- @entity584 were elevated in astrocytes subjected to 4 h of @entity63 . Elevated p- @entity1366 levels were sustained during the postischemia incubation for 12 h and decreased significantly afterward, but did not return to the levels in the control cultures that did not experience @entity63 insult. In contrast, the p- @entity584 level continued to increase at 6 and 12 h postischemia before declining significantly. The changes in p- @entity1366 and p- @entity584 correlated well with the appearance of apoptotic astrocytes in the culture.

Apoptosis and activation of Erkl/2 and XXXX in astrocytes postischemia.

@entity1366 :: ('5595;5594', 'Gene') :: ['Erk1/2'] @entity5956 :: ('MESH:C017807', 'Chemical') :: ['Hoechst 33342'] @entity584 :: ('207', 'Gene') :: ['Akt'] @entity63 :: ('MESH:D007511', 'Disease') :: ['ischemia', 'ischemic']
@entity584 :: (207,Gene) :: ['Akt']
