Apoptosis and necrosis: two distinct events induced by cadmium in cortical neurons in culture.

(1) Cadmium is an extremely toxic metal commonly found in industrial workplaces, a food contaminant and a major component of cigarette smoke. Cadmium can severely damage several organs, including the brain. In this work, we have studied both the cadmium toxicity on rat cortical neurons in culture and the possible protective effect of serum. (2) Our results indicate that: (1) cadmium is taken up by the neurons in a dose and serum dependent way; (2) cadmium, at concentrations from 1 micro M or 10 micro M (depending on the absence or the presence of serum) up to 100 micro M, decreases the metabolic capacity, which was evaluated by the XTT (tetrazolium salt) test; (3) cadmium induces apoptosis and LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) release in a dose dependent way; (4) in a serum-free medium, the cadmium-induced apoptosis is accompanied by caspase-3 activation; (5) both the caspase-3 activation and the cadmium-induced apoptosis are reversed by N-acethyl-Asp-Glu-Val-Asp-aldehyde (Ac-DEVD-CHO), a selective caspase-3 inhibitor, indicating that the caspase-3 pathway is involved in cadmium-induced apoptosis in cortical neurons; and (6) the cadmium concentrations which produce caspase-3 activation do not modify the intracellular ATP levels; however, higher cadmium concentrations lead to both intracellular ATP depletion and ATP release, but do not increase the caspase-3 activity, indicating that cadmium also produces cellular death by necrosis. (3) These results suggest that cadmium induces either apoptosis or necrosis in rat cortical neurons, depending on the cadmium concentration.