Halothane increases neuronal cell death vulnerability by downregulating miR-214 and upregulating Bax.

Inhalational general anesthesia is widely used in clinical practice, but there have been plenty of evidence shows that application of inhalational anesthetics may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Halothane is a common inhalational anesthetics. We cultured rat primary neurons as study model to investigate cytotoxicity of halothane in neurons. We found that halothane could enhance the cytotoxicity induced by intracellular or extracellular amyloid β (Aβ) with or without serum deprivation. In addition, halothane induced the enhanced cytotoxicity through downregulation of miR-214 level which can lead to increasing expression of Bax. Therefore our data suggest that halothane increases cell death induced by Aβ through increasing Bax level by downregulating miR-214. Our study indicates a probable connection between anesthetic application and AD, while provides a new perspective for the studies of inhalational anesthetics cytotoxicity.