Acrylamide-induced astrogliotic and apoptotic responses in human astrocytoma cells

This study was to clarify whether acrylamide (ACR) will induce apoptosis and astrogliosis in an astrocytic cell line in vitro. Different time- and dose-dependent cytotoxic studies were conducted upon neuronal (SH-SY5Y) and glial cell lines (U-1240 MG) under exposure to ACR up to 72 h. We showed that SH-SY5Y cells were more sensitive in cytotoxic assays than U-1240 MG cells, and significantly decreased cell viability was observed at concentrations higher than 1 mM with increased lactate dehydrogenase leakage observed only at 5 and 10 mM in U-1240 MG cells. The ACR-induced apoptotic responses and phosphorylation of p53 protein at Ser15 for U-1240 MG cells were identified at 48 h. The increase of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) as a chemical-induced astrogliotic response was found to be associated with different ACR concentrations and exposure times, particularly at ≧48 h of ≧2 mM. In addition, immunocytochemical staining at 36 h of 5 and 10 mM treatments had significantly higher density of GFAP than the control. Thus, ACR-induced effects can be seen in neuronal and astrocytic cells. These results suggest that ACR exposure may lead to apoptotic and astrogliotic effects in human astrocytoma cells in vitro in a time- and dose-dependent manner.