ON THE ROLE OF TUMOR NECROSIS FACTOR-ALPHA (TNF-α) AND NUCLEAR FACTOR p-NF-κB IN THE PENTYLENETETRAZOLE KINDLING PATHOGENESIS

Abstract

Determining the role of endogenous factors as markers of chronic epileptic activity allows pathogenetically justifying new approaches to treating epilepsy. The aim of the work was the immunohistochemical study of the expression of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and nuclear factor p-NF-κB in the tissue of the dorsal parts of the hippocampus in rats with kindling seizures. Kindling was produced in 15 rats by three-week i.p. pentylenetetrazole (PTZ, 35.0 mg/kg) administration. 20 control group rats were injected with 0.9% NaCl solution. The avidin-biotin-peroxidase method was used in 10 control group rats for staining. The rest ten rats composed the negative control group and stained using only secondary antibodies. The color intensity of the brain sections of the control and kindling groups was compared with the color of the brain sections of the negative control group using the "Image J" program. In rats with PTZ-kindling, the level of TNF-α was 17.86+0.83 relative units (RU) and exceeded the corresponding indicator in the control group (4.78+0.14 RU), (p<0.001). The expression of p-NF-κB was 5.24+0.61 against 1.73+0.07 RU in control (p<0.001). Determination of the expression of TNF-α and NF-κB in limbic structures can be used as markers of the effectiveness of experimental treatment methods for chronic epilepsy. Key words: seizures, cytokines, hypoxia, pentylenetetrazol, hippocamp