Effects of Budesonide and Dexamethasone on Cell Morphology, Thymidine Incorporation and Glutamine Synthetase Activity in Rat Primary Astroglial Culture

Abstract

Glucocorticoids are widely used in medical practice. Since astrocytes are target cells for glucocorticoids, the effects of two glucocorticoids, budesonide and dexamethasone, on cell morphology, thymidine incorporation into DNA and glutamine synthetase (GS) activity, were evaluated in primary astroglial cultures. Both budesonide and dexamethasone caused a threefold increase in GS activity over a dose range of 10-6–10-9M. There were no differences between the effects of the two glucocorticoids. No morphological changes were obtained with the glucocorticoids with the same concentration range as above and with incubation periods of up to 48 hours. Nor were any effects on [3H]-thymidine incorporation observed. It is concluded that glucocorticoids can regulate intracellular amino acid metabolism in astrocytes by an activation of GS, while cell morphology and cell replication appear not to be affected.