Review
Cellular viability effects of fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibition on cerebellar neurons
-
* Corresponding authors: Oscar Arias-Carrión arias@exp-neuro.de - Eric Murillo-Rodríguez eric.murillo@anahuac.mx
1 Instituto de Fisiología Celular, División de Neurociencias Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México México DF, México
2 Department of Neurology, Philipps University, D-35033 Marburg, Germany
3 Laboratorio de Neurociencias Moleculares e Integrativas Escuela de Medicina, División Ciencias de la Salud Universidad Anáhuac Mayab Mérida, Yucatán. México
International Archives of Medicine 2011, 4:28 doi:10.1186/1755-7682-4-28
Published: 19 August 2011Abstract
The endocannabinoid anandamide (ANA) participates in the control of cell death inducing the formation of apoptotic bodies and DNA fragmentation. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the ANA degrading enzyme, the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), would induce cellular death. Experiments were performed in cerebellar granule neurons cultured with the FAAH inhibitor, URB597 (25, 50 or 100 nM) as well as endogenous lipids such as oleoylethanolamide (OEA) or palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) and cellular viability was determined by MTT test. Neurons cultured with URB597 (25, 50 or 100 nM) displayed a decrease in cellular viability. In addition, if cultured with OEA (25 nM) or PEA (100 nM), cellular death was found. These results further suggest that URB597, OEA or PEA promote cellular death.