Abstract
1. Uridine triphosphate (UTP), uridine diphosphate (UDP), cytidine triphosphate (CTP), and deoxythymidine triphosphate (TTP) caused concentration-dependent increases in the release of thromboxane A2 (TXA2) from cultured glia prepared from the newborn rat cerebral cortex. Although each of the pyrimidine nucleotides displayed similar potencies, CTP and TTP were considerably less effective than either UTP or UDP. The purine nucleotide ATP was equally as potent as the pyrimidine nucleotides but was marginally less effective than either UTP or UDP. 2. The ability of UTP, UDP, TTP, and CTP to promote TXA2 release from cultured glia was inhibited in a concentration-dependent manner by suramin and was markedly reduced when incubations were performed either in Ca(2+)-free medium or on cultures which had been maintained in serum-free growth medium for 4 days prior to experimentation. 3. Challenges with UTP and UDP in combination were found to elicit a response which was no different from the effects of these nucleotides alone; in addition, their effects were reversed by the phospholipase A2 inhibitor ONO-RS-082. A slight reduction in UTP- and UDP-stimulated TXA2 release was observed in cultures grown in the presence of leucine methyl ester, a treatment reported to limit microglial survival. 4. These results suggest that glia are targets for extracellular pyrimidine nucleotides and that their ability to release eicosanoids from these cells may be important in the brain's response to damage.