Abstract
Stress proteins coordinate cellular responses to potentially damaging environmental changes, and are expressed abnormally in various disease states including fever, tissue trauma, oxidant injury, experimental models for aging, heavy metals, and neuronal damage. To determine if cocaine induces stress protein gene expression, we administered cocaine hydrochloride (30 mg/kg or 60 mg/kg) to male Sprague-Dawley rats per intraperitoneal injection. Animals were sacrificed 0, 2, 4 and 8 hours after injection, their brains removed and rapidly dissected, and total RNA isolated from frontal cortex, subcortical brain, and cerebellum. RNA was separated by denaturing gel electrophoresis, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes, and probed using (32-P)-labelled riboprobes for stress protein mRNAs. There was no change in Hsp60, Hsp70, or ubiquitin message after either dose of cocaine in any of the brain regions that we sampled. We conclude that either acute cocaine exposure does not induce a stress response, or such a response is confined to discrete brain regions too small to be detected in these experiments. Follow up studies of stress protein gene expression in ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra, nucleus accumbens, and caudate nucleus are under way.
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Samuelson, S., Yarbrough, L. & Herdler, J. Cocaine Administration Does Not Induce Acute Expression of Stress Protein Genes. Neuropsychopharmacol 11, 282 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380200
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1380200