Tag Archives: cannabinoid

Effects of Cannabidiol and Hypothermia on Short-Term Brain Damage in New-Born Piglets after Acute Hypoxia-Ischemia.

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“Hypothermia is a standard treatment for neonatal encephalopathy, but nearly 50% of treated infants have adverse outcomes.

Pharmacological therapies can act through complementary mechanisms with hypothermia improving neuroprotection.

Cannabidiol could be a good candidate.

Our aim was to test whether immediate treatment with cannabidiol and hypothermia act through complementary brain pathways in hypoxic-ischemic newborn piglets.

Individually, the hypothermia and the cannabidiol treatments reduced the glutamate/Nacetyl-aspartate ratio, as well as TNFα and oxidized protein levels in newborn piglets subjected to hypoxic-ischemic insult. Also, both therapies reduced the number of necrotic neurons and prevented an increase in lactate/N-acetyl-aspartate ratio.

The combined effect of hypothermia and cannabidiol on excitotoxicity, inflammation and oxidative stress, and on cell damage, was greater than either hypothermia or cannabidiol alone.

The present study demonstrated that cannabidiol and hypothermia act complementarily and show additive effects on the main factors leading to hypoxic-ischemic brain damage if applied shortly after the insult.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27462203

Cannabinoid Modulation of Cutaneous Aδ Nociceptors During Inflammation

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“Previous studies have demonstrated that locally administered cannabinoids attenuate allodynia and hyperalgesia through activation of peripheral cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2).

These results suggest that attenuation of mechanically evoked responses of Aδ nociceptors contributes to the behavioral antinociception produced by activation of peripheral CB1 receptors during inflammation.

Several studies have demonstrated that locally administered cannabinoids produce antinociception in animal models of both acute and persistent pain through peripheral mechanisms.

Taken together, our data suggest that peripherally acting cannabinoids could be a potential therapeutic treatment for chronic inflammatory pain.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2585399/

 

Allosteric modulation of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor.

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“We investigated the pharmacology of three novel compounds, Org 27569 (5-chloro-3-ethyl-1H-indole-2-carboxylic acid [2-(4-piperidin-1-yl-phenyl)-ethyl]-amide), Org 27759 (3-ethyl-5-fluoro-1H-indole-2-carboxylic acid [2-94-dimethylamino-phenyl)-ethyl]-amide), and Org 29647 (5-chloro-3-ethyl-1H-indole-2-carboxylic acid (1-benzyl-pyrrolidin-3-yl)-amide, 2-enedioic acid salt), at the cannabinoid CB1 receptor.

These data suggest that the Org compounds bind allosterically to the CB1 receptor and elicit a conformational change that increases agonist affinity for the orthosteric binding site.

The data presented clearly demonstrate, for the first time, that the cannabinoid CB1 receptor contains an allosteric binding site that can be recognized by synthetic small molecule ligands.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16113085

Arachidonylcyclopropylamide increases microglial cell migration through cannabinoid CB2 and abnormal-cannabidiol-sensitive receptors.

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“Microglial cells, the macrophages of the brain, express low, yet detectable levels of cannabinoid CB(1) receptors, which are known to modulate cell migration.

To determine if cannabinoid CB(1) receptors expressed by microglial cells modulate their migration, we assessed whether arachidonylcyclopropylamide (ACPA, an agonist shown to selectively activate CB(1) receptors) affects the migration of BV-2 cells, a mouse microglial cell line.

Our results suggest that cannabinoid CB(2) receptors and abn-CBD receptors, rather than cannabinoid CB(1) receptors, regulate microglial cell migration, and that ACPA is a broad cannabinoid receptor agonist.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12921861

Enantiomeric cannabidiol derivatives: synthesis and binding to cannabinoid receptors.

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“(-)-Cannabidiol (CBD) is a major, non psychotropic constituent of cannabis.

It has been shown to cause numerous physiological effects of therapeutic importance.

We have reported that CBD derivatives in both enantiomeric series are of pharmaceutical interest. Here we describe the syntheses of the major CBD metabolites, (-)-7-hydroxy-CBD and (-)-CBD-7-oic acid and their dimethylheptyl (DMH) homologs, as well as of the corresponding compounds in the enantiomeric (+)-CBD series. The starting materials were the respective CBD enantiomers and their DMH homologs.

The binding of these compounds to the CB(1) and CB(2) cannabinoid receptors are compared.

Surprisingly, contrary to the compounds in the (-) series, which do not bind to the receptors, most of the derivatives in the (+) series bind to the CB(1) receptor in the low nanomole range. Some of these compounds also bind weakly to the CB(2) receptor.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15750656

Cannabinoid receptors in microglia of the central nervous system: immune functional relevance.

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“Microglia, resident macrophages of the brain, function as immune effector and accessory cells. Paradoxically, they not only play a role in host defense and tissue repair but also have been implicated in a variety of neuropathological processes.

Microglia, in addition to exhibiting phenotypic markers for macrophages, express CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid receptors. Recent studies suggest the existence of a third, yet-to-be cloned, non-CB1, non-CB2 cannabinoid receptor.

These receptors appear to be functionally relevant within defined windows of microglial activation state and have been implicated as linked to cannabinoid modulation of chemokine and cytokine expression.

The recognition that microglia express cannabinoid receptors and that their activation results in modulation of select cellular activities suggests that they may be amenable to therapeutic manipulation for ablating untoward inflammatory responses in the central nervous system.”  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16204639

http://www.jleukbio.org/content/78/6/1192.long

 

Cannabinoid-mediated inhibition of inducible nitric oxide production by rat microglial cells: evidence for CB1 receptor participation.

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“Activated brain microglial cells release inflammatory mediators such as nitric oxide (NO) that may play important roles in central nervous system antibacterial, antiviral, and antitumor activities. However, excessive release of these factors has been postulated to elicit immune-mediated neurodegenerative inflammatory processes and to cause brain injury.

Recent studies using the rat animal model indicate that select cannabinoids may modulate production of these inflammatory factors.

Collectively, these results indicate that the cannabinoid analog CP55940 selectively inhibits inducible NO production by microglial cells and that this inhibition is effected, at least in part, through the CB1 receptor.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11727767

Protective effect of cannabidiol on hydrogen peroxide‑induced apoptosis, inflammation and oxidative stress in nucleus pulposus cells.

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“Cannabidiol, a major component of marijuana, protects nerves, and exerts antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and anti‑anxiety effects.

In the current study, the protective effect of cannabidiol was observed to prevent hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)‑induced apoptosis, inflammation and oxidative stress in nucleus pulposus cells.

Taken together, these results suggest that cannabidiol potentially exerts its protective effect on LDH via the suppression of anti‑apoptosis, anti‑inflammation and anti‑oxidative activities in nucleus pulposus cells.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27430346

VCE-003.2, a novel cannabigerol derivative, enhances neuronal progenitor cell survival and alleviates symptomatology in murine models of Huntington’s disease.

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“Cannabinoids have shown to exert neuroprotective actions in animal models by acting at different targets including canonical cannabinoid receptors and PPARγ.

We previously showed that VCE-003, a cannabigerol (CBG) quinone derivative, is a novel neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory cannabinoid acting through PPARγ. We have now generated a non-thiophilic VCE-003 derivative named VCE-003.2 that preserves the ability to activate PPARγ and analyzed its neuroprotective activity.

This compound exerted a prosurvival action in progenitor cells during neuronal differentiation, which was prevented by a PPARγ antagonist, without affecting neural progenitor cell proliferation. In addition, VCE-003.2 attenuated quinolinic acid (QA)-induced cell death and caspase-3 activation and also reduced mutant huntingtin aggregates in striatal cells.

The neuroprotective profile of VCE-003.2 was analyzed using in vivo models of striatal neurodegeneration induced by QA and 3-nitropropionic acid (3NP) administration. VCE-003.2 prevented medium spiny DARPP32(+) neuronal loss in these Huntington’s-like disease mice models improving motor deficits, reactive astrogliosis and microglial activation. In the 3NP model VCE-003.2 inhibited the upregulation of proinflammatory markers and improved antioxidant defenses in the brain.

These data lead us to consider VCE-003.2 to have high potential for the treatment of Huntington’s disease (HD) and other neurodegenerative diseases with neuroinflammatory traits.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27430371

Cannabinoid activation of PPARα; a novel neuroprotective mechanism

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“The cannabinoids are a structurally diverse family of compounds with a large number of different biological targets.

Although CB1 receptor activation evokes neuroprotection in response to cannabinoids, some cannabinoids have been reported to be peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) ligands, offering an alternative protective mechanism.

We have, therefore, investigated the ability of a range of cannabinoids to activate PPARα and for N-oleoylethanolamine (OEA), an endogenous cannabinoid-like compound (ECL), to evoke neuroprotection.

These data demonstrate the potential for a range of cannabinoid compounds, of diverse structures, to activate PPARα and suggest that at least some of the neuroprotective properties of these agents could be mediated by nuclear receptor activation.

In summary, the data presented here provide strong evidence that selected cannabinoids are PPARα agonists, and suggest a novel means by which the multiple effects of cannabinoids, in both the CNS and periphery, could be brought about.

In addition to its well-recognized role in lipid metabolism, PPARα activation showed obvious beneficial effects in ischaemic brain damage, which is likely to be connected with its anti-inflammatory action through the NF–κB pathway.

These discoveries not only broaden the potential use of cannabinoids as therapeutic agents, but also support PPARα as a new target for neuroprotective treatment.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190030/