Libidibia ferrea Mature Seeds Promote Antinociceptive Effect by Peripheral and Central Pathway: Possible Involvement of Opioid and Cholinergic Receptors

Libidibia ferrea (LF) is a medicinal plant that holds many pharmacological properties. We evaluated the antinociceptive effect in the LF aqueous seed extract and Lipidic Portion of Libidibia ferrea (LPLF), partially elucidating their mechanisms. Histochemical tests and Gas chromatography of the LPLF were performed to characterize its fatty acids. Acetic acid-induced abdominal constriction, formalin-induced pain, and hot-plate test in mice were employed in the study. In all experiments, aqueous extract or LPLF was administered systemically at the doses of 1, 5, and 10 mg/kg. LF aqueous seed extract and LPLF demonstrated a dose-dependent antinociceptive effect in all tests indicating both peripheral anti-inflammatory and central analgesia properties. Also, the use of atropine (5 mg/kg), naloxone (5 mg/kg) in the abdominal writhing test was able to reverse the antinociceptive effect of the LPLF, indicating that at least one of LF lipids components is responsible for the dose related antinociceptive action in chemical and thermal models of nociception in mice. Together, the present results suggested that Libidibia ferrea induced antinociceptive activity is possibly related to its ability to inhibit opioid, cholinergic receptors, and cyclooxygenase-2 pathway, since its main component, linoleic acid, has been demonstrated to produce such effect in previous studies

GABA and glutamate transporters: new events and function in the vertebrate retina

The neural retina is a highly complex tissue composed of excitatory and inhibitory neurons and glial cells. Glutamate, the main excitatory neurotransmitter, mediates information transfer from photoreceptors, bipolar cells, and ganglion cells, whereas interneurons, mainly amacrine and horizontal cells, use γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the main inhibitory neurotransmitter. In this review we place an emphasis on glutamate and GABA transporters as highly regulated molecules that play fundamental roles in neurotransmitter clearance, neurotransmitter release, and oxidative stress. We pharmacologically characterized glutamate transporters in chicken retina cells and identified two glutamate transporters: one Na+-dependent transporter and one Na+-independent transporter. The Na+-dependent uptake system presented characteristics related to the high-affinity xAG- system (EAAT1), and the Na+-independent uptake system presented characteristics related to the xCG- system, which highly contributes to glutamate transport in the retina. Glutamate shares the xCG- system with another amino acid, L-cysteine, suggesting the possible involvement of glutathione. Both transporter proteins are present mainly in Müller glial cells. GABA transporters (GATs) mediate high-affinity GABA uptake from the extracellular space and terminate the synaptic action of GABA in the central nervous system. GABA transporters can be modulated by molecules that act on specific sites to promote transporter phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. In addition to a role in the clearance of GABA, GATs may also release GABA through a reverse transport mechanism. In the chicken retina, a GAT-1 blocker, but not GAT2/3 blocker, was shown to inhibit GABA uptake, suggesting that GABA release from retina cells is mainly mediated by a GAT-1-like transporter

Diverse Molecular Structures across the Whole Star-forming Disk of M83: High-fidelity Imaging at 40 pc Resolution

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) imaging of molecular gas across the full star-forming disk of the barred spiral galaxy M83 in CO( J = 1–0). We jointly deconvolve the data from ALMA’s 12 m, 7 m, and Total Power arrays using the MIRIAD package. The data have a mass sensitivity and resolution of 10 ^4 M _⊙ (3 σ ) and 40 pc—sufficient to detect and resolve a typical molecular cloud in the Milky Way with a mass and diameter of 4 × 10 ^5 M _⊙ and 40 pc, respectively. The full disk coverage shows that the characteristics of molecular gas change radially from the center to outer disk, with the locally measured brightness temperature, velocity dispersion, and integrated intensity (surface density) decreasing outward. The molecular gas distribution shows coherent large-scale structures in the inner part, including the central concentration, offset ridges along the bar, and prominent molecular spiral arms. However, while the arms are still present in the outer disk, they appear less spatially coherent, and even flocculent. Massive filamentary gas concentrations are abundant even in the interarm regions. Building up these structures in the interarm regions would require a very long time (≳100 Myr). Instead, they must have formed within stellar spiral arms and been released into the interarm regions. For such structures to survive through the dynamical processes, the lifetimes of these structures and their constituent molecules and molecular clouds must be long (≳100 Myr). These interarm structures host little or no star formation traced by H α . The new map also shows extended CO emission, which likely represents an ensemble of unresolved molecular clouds