Global gene profiling of kainate-induced neuronal death

It has long been established that in neurological disease models, KA is a potent excitotoxin, mediating acute limbic seizures and long-term morphologic changes in the hippocampus, which are hallmark characteristics seen in temporal lobe epilepsy (i.e. mossy-fiber sprouting, neuronal loss, and reactive gliosis; Ben-Ari and Cossart, 2000). Persuasive clinical evidence employing KA receptor agonists further substantiate the detrimental effects of kainate. For instance, domoic acid (a structural analogue of kainate) has been found to inflict detrimental damage the hippocampus through a real-life outbreak incident of toxic encephalopathy caused by ingestion of mussels contaminated with domoic acid (Pearl et al., 1990). A total of 15 RNA samples were analyzed. Cultured murine primary cortical neurons were treated with 100uM kainate over a time-course of 5h, 15h and 24h (n=3) in addition to the vehicle control (n=6).