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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Mechanism of pyrethroid pesticide-induced apoptosis: role of calpain and the ER stress pathway.

Authors: Hossain, Muhammad M; Richardson, Jason R

Published In Toxicol Sci, (2011 Aug)

Abstract: Exposure to the pyrethroid pesticide deltamethrin has been demonstrated to cause apoptosis both in vitro and in vivo. However, the molecular pathways leading to deltamethrin-induced apoptosis have not been established. To identify these pathways, SK-N-AS neuroblastoma cells were exposed to deltamethrin (100 nM-5 ýýM) for 24-48 h. Deltamethrin produced a time- and dose-dependent increase (21-300%) in DNA fragmentation, an indicator of apoptosis. Data demonstrate that the initiation of DNA fragmentation resulted from interaction of deltamethrin with Naýýý channels and consequent calcium influx, as tetrodotoxin and the intracellular Caýýýýý chelator BAPTA-AM completely prevented apoptosis. DNA fragmentation was accompanied by increased caspase-9 and -3 activities and was abolished by specific caspase-9 and -3 inhibitors. However, deltamethrin did not increase cytosolic cytochrome c levels, indicating that the mitochondrial pathway was likely not involved. Additional studies demonstrated that deltamethrin exposure activated caspase-12 activity and that pharmacological inhibition and siRNA knockdown of calpain prevented deltamethrin-induced DNA fragmentation, thus indicating a role for the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress pathway. This was confirmed by the observation that inhibition of eIF2ýý abolished deltamethrin-induced DNA fragmentation. Together, these data demonstrate that deltamethrin causes apoptosis through its interaction with Naýýý channels, leading to calcium overload and activation of the ER stress pathway. Because ER stress and the subsequent unfolded protein response have been observed in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, these data provide mechanistic information by which high-level exposure to pyrethroids may contribute to neurodegeneration.

PubMed ID: 21555338 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: No MeSH terms associated with this publication

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