The cystine glutamate antiporter and classical glutamate transporters in normal and pathological brains and retinae

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/252746

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

This project will examine the role of a system that transports a toxic neurotransmitter, glutamate out of cells where it is relatively harmless, into the space surrounding nerve cells where it can be highly toxic. Previous models for the aberrant release of glutamate under pathological conditions such as strokes, have relied on the notion that other specialised glutamate transporters which normally work to remove glutamate from the space surrounding nerve cells, actually reverse their direction of action and release glutamate. The current study investigates a transport system (called the cystine-glutamate antiporter) where the normal direction of action is to release glutamate. This system has been overlooked despite evidence that it could be involved in releasing glutamate and thus contribute to the death of nerve cells in a variety of human pathologies including glaucoma of the eye, epilepsy, and brain damage that occurs when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted, such as after a heart attack. This study examines both human tissues and animal models of disease states to determine if similar transport systems are present and if the cystine-glutamate antiporter might contribute to human nervous diseases. The function and distribution of the cystine-glutamate antiporter will be compared with classical transporters, under normal and pathological conditions, including situations where we have shown that it is possible to experimentally perturb normal glutamate transporter expression.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2003

End Date: 01-01-2005

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $416,000.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Cell Neurochemistry

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Alzheimer's disease | Epilepsy | amino acid transport | brain | glaucoma | glial-neuron relationship | glutamate | ischaemia | motor neurone disease

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