Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to F F Santos-Benito.
A synthetic tetrasaccharide structurally related to blood groups and selectin ligands inhibited division of astrocytes, gliomas, and neuroblastomas at micromolar concentrations. The compound was cytostatic for primary astrocytes in culture, but cytotoxic for fast proliferating cell lines.
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Stereotaxic lesions of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis were made unilaterally in male Wistar rats with either kainic or ibotenic acid, using the contralateral side as control. Differences in behavior, body weight, and survival were observed between the kainic and ibotenic acid-treated rats. One week after surgery, the rats were sacrificed and the effect of the lesions on choline acetyltransferase activity was measured in brain cortex homogenate, synaptosomes, and capillaries. In kainic acid-lesioned rats, choline acetyltransferase activity decreased in homogenate and synaptosomes of the ipsilateral side with respect to that of the contralateral side; but the ibotenic acid lesion, which also reduced the ipsilateral choline acetyltransferase activity in homogenate, showed a rather different effect on the enzymatic activity of the synaptosomes. There were also differences between the effect of kainic and ibotenic acid lesions on choline acetyltransferase activity in the capillaries of the ipsilateral side with respect to that of the contralateral one. However, capillary choline acetyltransferase activity of the treated rats was in both sides three times higher than that of unoperated rats.
Choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity was estimated in brain cortex capillaries isolated from 3-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old rats. Maximum enzymatic activity was found at 12 months (55 +/- 0.3 pmol X mg-1 protein X min-1; mean +/- SEM) and then it decreased to reach a minimum at 24 months (34 +/- 3.1 pmol X mg-1 protein X min-1). A less marked decrease of enzymatic activity was also found in cortex homogenate and in a synaptosomal fraction obtained from the same groups of rats. Loss of ChAT of brain capillaries with aging could be related to a general phenomenon of cortical cholinergic deficit in that condition.