Evidence that 5-HT2 antagonism elicits a 5-HT3-mediated increase in dopamine transmission

Amperozide, a novel atypical antipsychotic drug with few extrapyramidal side effects, is a strong serotonin₂ (5-HT₂) antagonist but has low affinity for dopamine receptors in vitro. The effect of amperozide on the dopaminergic synapse was studied with an in vivo microdialysis technique using anesthetized male Sprague-Dawley rats. Following implantation of dialysis probes into the striatum and nucleus accumbens (NuAc), amperozide was intravenously infused as six consecutive incremental doses (0.5, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0 and 8.0 mg/kg) at intervals of 15 min. From the beginning of drug infusion, perfusates were collected in fractions every 30 min throughout a total period of 120 min. The samples were then immediately analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. Amperozide induced a dose-related elevation of dopamine, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (5-HIAA) levels in both areas.p-Chlorophenylalanine (pCPA) pretreatment abolished the production of 5-HIAA in both areas and attenuated the amperozide-induced rise of DOPAC but not of dopamine. After pretreatment with an intravenous 5-HT₃ antagonist, MDL 72222, the amperozide-induced changes in dopamine, DOPAC and 5-HIAA in both areas were lower than in the saline control group. Preliminary data showed that afterpCPA pretreatment, incremental concentrations of the 5-HT₃ agonist 1-(m-chlorophenyl)-biguanide perfused via the probe also produced significant elevation of dopamine and DOPAC levels in these two areas. Taken together, these results suggest that amperozide may directly block 5-HT₂ receptors in the striatum and NuAc, thereby enhancing 5-HT transmission. The enhanced 5-HT transmission may activate postsynpatic 5-HT₃ receptors located on the dopaminergic terminals, leading to changes in dopamine transmission in these two areas.     

Improvement of strain discrimination by combination of RAPD with PFGE for the analysis of the swine isolates of Salmonella enterica serovar Choleraesuis

Salmonella enterica serovar Choleraesuis (S. Choleraesuis) can cause salmonellosis in pigs and humans. Currently, the most common method used for the subtyping of this Salmonella serovar is pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) using XbaI as a DNA digestion enzyme. In this study, we compared and combined PFGE with the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA method, for the typing of 95 S. Choloraesuis strains isolated from diseased pigs. Using PFGE with XbaI, with AvrII, and with SpeI digested DNA, 29, 74, and 40 patterns, respectively, were obtained. Also, 53, 15, and 35 strains, respectively, belong to the major patterns X1, A1, and S1. When these three digestion patterns were combined, 83 PFGE pattern combinations were obtained. On the other hand, using RAPD with selected primer alone generated 76 patterns, and 11 strains which fell within a single X1A1S1 PFGE combination pattern were discriminated into 10 patterns. Thus, for S. Choloraesuis, PFGE with AvrII allowed higher discrimination than PFGE with XbaI, and some of the PFGE groupings obtained by combining the XbaI, AvrII and SpeI digestion patterns were further subdivided by the RAPD method.     

Effects of amphetamine on schedule-induced polydipsia

A series of experiments examined the effects of amphetamine (AMPH) at various doses administration for different length of time on a schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP) and possible associations with behavioral activation. Two stages of a two-week AMPH treatment were introduced with interposed interval of two months. In terms of behavioral activation, AMPH induced a robust depression across stages but with less potency in the second one. As for the SIP performance, the effects manifested qualitative difference in the two stages. For the first stage, there were no differential effects of AMPH on stereotypy intensity during the facultative phase of the inter-rewarding interval. However, AMPH reduced the high frequency of licks in the adjunctive (schedule-induced) phase and increased the low frequency of nose pokes in the terminal (schedule-dependent) phase. In the second stage, AMPH had no effect on the frequency of licking whereas the efficiency of licking and the frequency of nose pokes were reduced. These results were interpreted to support the current viewpoint that the behavior of SIP displaying is relevant to the function of central dopaminergic systems. The results were further discussed in the considerations of behavioral competition, stress coping strategy, and also the impact of AMPH at different time.