The contribution of the blood glutamate scavenging activity of pyruvate to its neuroprotective properties in a rat model of closed head injury

Alexander Zlotnik, Boris Gurevich, Evgenia Cherniavsky, Sergei Tkachov, Angela Matuzani-Ruban, Avner Leon, Yoram Shapira, Vivian I. Teichberg

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    71 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    The removal of excess glutamate from brain fluids after acute insults such as closed head injury (CHI) and stroke is expected to prevent excitotoxicity and the ensuing long lasting neurological deficits. Since blood glutamate scavenging accelerates the removal of excess glutamate from brain into blood and causes neuroprotection, we have evaluated here whether the neuroprotective properties of pyruvate could be partly accounted to its blood glutamate scavenging activity. The neurological outcome of rats after CHI improved significantly when treated with intravenous pyruvate (0.9 mmoles/100 g) but not with pyruvate administered together with glutamate. Pyruvate, at 5 μmole/100 g rat was neither protective not able to decrease blood glutamate but displayed the latter two properties when combined with 60 μg/100 g of glutamate-pyruvate transaminase. Since the neurological recovery from CHI was correlated with the decrease of blood glutamate levels, we conclude that pyruvate blood glutamate scavenging activity contributes to the spectrum of its neuroprotective mechanisms.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1044-1050
    Number of pages7
    JournalNeurochemical Research
    Volume33
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Jun 2008

    Keywords

    • Antioxidant activity
    • Blood glutamate levels
    • Blood glutamate scavenging
    • Brain to blood glutamate efflux
    • Closed head injury
    • Excitotoxicity
    • Glutamate
    • Glutamate-pyruvate transaminase
    • Neurological outcome
    • Neuroprotection
    • Oxaloacetate
    • Pyruvate
    • Stroke

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Biochemistry
    • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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