Abstract

Phenelzine is a potent monoamine oxidase inhibitor that is used in patients with depression. It is also well known that nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitors show preclinical antidepressant-like properties, which suggests that NO is involved in the pathogenesis of depression. The purpose of this study was to determine if phenelzine affects the production of NO and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in activated microglia cells. BV-2 microglia cells and primary microglia cells were cultured in DMEM and DMEM/F12 and then cells were treated with LPS or LPS plus phenelzine for 24 h. The culture medium was collected for determination of NO, TNF-α, and IL-6 and cells were harvested by lysis buffer for Western blot analysis. Phenelzine increased the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), as well as the release of TNF-α and IL-6 in BV-2 microglia cells. It is also confirmed that phenelzine increased the levels of NO, TNF-α and IL-6 in LPS-activated primary microglia cells. Phenelzine increased nuclear translocation of NF-κB by phosphorylation of IκB-a in LPS-activated microglia cells. These findings suggest that high doses of phenelzine could aggravate inflammatory responses in microglia cells that are mediated by NO and TNF-α. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012.

Author keywords

Microglia; NF-κB; Nitric oxide; Phenelzine; Tumor necrosis factor-aα

Indexed keywords

EMTREE drug terms: Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide; I kappa B alpha; immunoglobulin enhancer binding protein; inducible nitric oxide synthase; interleukin 6; nitric oxide; phenelzine; tumor necrosis factor alpha

EMTREE medical terms: animal cell; article; cell nucleus; controlled study; cytokine production; cytokine release; drug effect; microglia; mouse; nerve cell culture; nonhuman; priority journal; protein expression; protein phosphorylation; protein transport

MeSH: Animals; Base Sequence; Cell Line, Transformed; Cytokines; DNA Primers; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Inflammation Mediators; Lipopolysaccharides; Mice; Microglia; Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors; NF-kappa B; Nitric Oxide; Phenelzine; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
Medline is the source for the MeSH terms of this document.

Chemicals and CAS Registry Numbers: I kappa B alpha, 151217-48-0; inducible nitric oxide synthase, 501433-35-8; nitric oxide, 10102-43-9; phenelzine, 156-51-4, 51-71-8;Cytokines; DNA Primers; Inflammation Mediators; Lipopolysaccharides; Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors; NF-kappa B; Nitric Oxide, 10102-43-9; Phenelzine, 51-71-8