• Balázs Bali, Zoltán Nagy, and Krisztina J Kovács.
• Laboratory of Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest.
• Ideggyogy Szemle. 2007 Mar 30; 60 (3-4): 140-3.

Introduction(-)Deprenyl is an irreversible inhibitor of type B monoamine oxidase (MAO-B), which is now used for treatment of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's diseases. Evidence suggests that the neuroprotective effect of deprenyl may not be related exclusively to the inhibition of the enzyme MAO-B.MethodsTo test the impact of deprenyl on ischemia-induced changes in vitro, we followed the time course of propidium iodide (PI) uptake as an indicator of neuronal cell death as well as the expression of apoptotic factors in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures exposed to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) for 45 min.ResultsThe first signs of neuronal death were detected 2 hours after OGD and were extended to all subfields of the hippocampus by 24 hours post-injury. Presence of deprenyl (10(-9) M) significantly delayed the cell death induced by the insult. Exposure of control cultures to deprenyl significantly increased the abundance of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl mRNAs as revealed by RT-PCR. OGD resulted in an elevation of anti-apoptotic factors, while the expression of pro-apoptotic bax remained unchanged.ConclusionThese data suggest that deprenyl is neuroprotective in an in vitro model of ischemia. Although deprenyl upregulates the expression of Bcl-2 under basal conditions, its effect on anti-apoptotic factors is not significantly manifested during OGD.

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