Candesartan neuroprotection on Rat Primary cerebellar granule cells (CGCs). Rattus norvegicus

Neuronal cultures were treated with candesartan at neuroprotective concentrations followed by excitotoxic glutamate amounts. Candesartan significantly reduced glutamate-induced inflammation. To provide mechanistic insight into the potential targets and pathways that may underlie these benefits, we performed genome wide expression profile analysis and evaluated the data by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). We found that the inflammation signal transduction pathways were major components of the neuronal response to glutamate excitotoxicity, and that candesartan significantly ameliorated glutamate-induced alterations in gene expression. Further analysis showed significant associations of these genes with two independent published networks identified by microarray analysis of hippocampal samples obtained post-mortem from brains of patients diagnosed with AD . Overall design: 8 days old rat Primary cerebellar granule cells (CGCs) were treated with DMSO, Glutamate, Candesartan or Glutamate +candesartan. Four replicates of each treatment were done.