Ackerley, S., Grierson, A.J., Brownlees, J., Thornhill, P., Anderton, B.H., Leigh, P.N., Shaw, C.E., and Miller C.C.
Notes: The authors seek to determine the role of glutamate in excitotoxicity and neurofilament accumulation seen in some neurodegenerative diseases. Neurofilament light, middle, and heavy chains were expressed from rat cDNAs cloned into the pCI-neo Mammalian Expression vector in SW-13 cells. Primary rat cortical neurons were transfected with a neurofilament middle chain and green fluorescent fusion protein. SW13 cells and primary rat cortical neurons were transfected with the ProFection® Mammalian Transfection System–Calcium Phosphate. The CytoTox 96® Non-Radioactive Cytotoxicity Assay was used to monitor glutamate toxicity in these cell. To determine the role of the MAPK and JNK signaling pathways, SW13- cells and primary neuronal cells were immunostained for dually phosphorylated MAPK and JNK using Promega's Anti-ACTIVE® MAPK pAb and Anti-ACTIVE® JNK pAb, respectively. Cells were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, permeabilized in 0.1% Triton® X-100 in PBS, blocked with 0.2% Tween® 20 in TBS, and incubated with primary antibodies diluted in blocking solution. Western blot analyses were performed on the primary cortical neurons to quantitate the level of dually phosphorylated MAPK protein The blots were also probed with a pan MAPK antibody that detects total (active and inactive) MAPK. (2382)