The cytotoxic effects and biotransformation of harmine and harmaline, which are known β-carboline alkaloids and potent hallucinogens, were studied in freshly isolated rat hepatocytes. The exposure of hepatocytes to harmine caused not only concentration (0-0.50mM)- and time (0-3h)-dependent cell death accompanied by the formation of cell blebs and the loss of cellular ATP, reduced glutathione,...
Archives of ToxicologyJanuary 2009Yoshio Nakagawa, Toshinari Suzuki, Sumiko Tayama et al.
The amphetamine-derived designer drugs have been illegally used worldwide as recreational drugs, some of which are known to be hepatotoxic in humans. To compare their cytotoxic effects, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine (MDMA) and its related analogues, N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MBDB), 3,4-(methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (BDB) and...
We constructed a reproducible, simple, and small-scale determination method of the psychoactive drugs that acted directly on the monoamine receptor by measuring the activation of [(35)S]guanosine-5'-O-(3-thio)-triphosphate binding to guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins). This method can simultaneously measure the effects of three monoamines, namely dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT),...