Glutamate Excitotoxicity Assay

Overactivation of glutamate receptors is a fundamental mechanism in neurodegenerative diseases it impairs cellular calcium homeostasis, activates nitric oxide synthesis and generation of free radicals causing programmed cell death.

Excitotoxicity induced by glutamate serves as a dependable model in understanding neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), HIV-associated neurodegenerative disorders, and others. Excitotoxicity emerges as a common pathway in various neurodegenerative conditions, making a functional phenotypic assay an intriguing approach for targeting these diseases.
At our facility, we provide services with this assay using primary frontal cortex cultures or human iPSC-derived tri-cultures comprising glutamatergic, GABAergic neurons, and astrocytes.

Cell Culture: Experiments were performed with primary frontal cortex cultures of mouse. We also offer this assay with human iPSC-derived neuronal cell cultures.

glutamate excitotoxicity assay

Image: Multi-parametric characterization of neuronal activity after glutamate/vehicle pretreatment and memantine/vehicle treatment (followed for 3 hours). Mean values presented with standard error. Comparison conducted using Student’s unpaired t-test against "water + water" (*) and “glutamate 100 µM + water” (+).

More Services

In addition to the primary assay, we offer supplementary or standalone assays including:

Viability Assay: Utilizing the ToxiLight assay.
Apoptosis: Caspase 3,Caspase 9, Bcl-2, and Bax
Oxidative Stress Assay: Measuring 8-OHdg levels.

Explore the comprehensive suite of assays to delve deeper into neurodegenerative mechanisms and potential therapeutic interventions.