Participation of metabotropic glutamate receptors of brain in mechanizms of hypoxic signaling

Abstract

Group I of metabotropic glutamate receptors (ImGluRs) are a family of G-protein-coupled receptors which activate a multitude of signaling pathways important for modulating neuronal excitability and synaptic plasticity as well as anti- and prosurvival pathways initiated by hypoxia. However these functions are still not complete and sometimes controversial. The present work is a review of data concerning involvement of ImGluRs in mechanisms of cell response to hypoxia. We also present original data demonstrating their participation in forming pathogenic and adaptogenic intracellular events, appearing in rat neocortex during a day after severe or moderate hypobaric hypoxia, respectively. Са²⁺ responses to ImGluRs stimulation in survival cortical slices and expression of ImGluRs, IP3Rs and PLCβ1 in immunolabelled cortical preparations were estimated for these two different hypoxic models.