Pharmacopsychiatry 2003; 36 - 94
DOI: 10.1055/s-2003-825345

Lipidperoxidation of brain homogenate and the non-enzymatic antioxidants vitamin C and vitamin E in abcb1ab (-/-) mutants and FVB controls

MT Grauer 1, C Namendorf 1, M Ebinger 1, A Rippel 1, M Uhr 1
  • 1Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie, München

The multi-drug resistance gene or ABCB1 gene is expressed at the blood-brain and blood-testes barrier and in excreting organs such as the liver and the kidney. P-glycoprotein is thought to have a protective function against toxic substances of the environment. It plays an excretory role in the biliary duct and the kidney tubuli. It is also expressed in blood-organ barriers, where the active export of its substrates back into the blood keeps the concentrations of the substrates in the organs low, e.g. in the brain. The current investigation deals with the question whether knock-out mutants that do not express P-glycoprotein, accumulate toxic substances that undergo lipid-peroxidation in the brain. We hypothesized that this decreases unsaturated fatty acids and non-enzymatic vitamin concentrations. Under the very standardized and probably not very toxic environmental conditions under which the relatively young mice were raised, no large, biologically relevant differences in the investigated parameters were observed.