Glutamate enhances caspase-3 immunoreactivity in cultured spinal cord neurons of newborn rats.

The role of glutamate in the mechanism of spinal neuron death is not fully understood. With addition of glutamate to primary culture of 11-day-old rat spinal cord, the number of caspase-3 positive small neurons of the dorsal horn greatly increased at 6-24 h in contrast to the case with vehicle. The addition of glutamate made caspase-3 immunoreactivity stronger in the cytoplasm of large motor neurons in the ventral horn. The present results show that excessive amount of glutamate enhances apoptotic pathway through caspase-3 in cultured spinal neurons of newborn rat.