{"id":2745,"date":"2009-07-19T15:44:44","date_gmt":"2009-07-19T14:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=2745"},"modified":"2009-07-19T15:44:44","modified_gmt":"2009-07-19T14:44:44","slug":"apoptosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2009\/07\/apoptosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Apoptosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marijuana is known to cause premature cell death in germ (sperm and ovum) cells.\u00a0 Here is new research indicating that marijuana also causes premature death of brain cells.At the end is a description of apoptosis supplied by William M. Bennett, M.D.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Tetrahydrocannabinol-induced neurotoxicity depends on CB1 receptor-mediated c-Jun N-terminal kinase activation in cultured cortical neurons.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient of marijuana, induces apoptosis in cultured cortical neurons. THC exerts its apoptotic effects in cortical neurons by binding to the CB1 cannabinoid receptor. The CB1 receptor has been shown to couple to the stress-activated protein kinase, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). However, the involvement of specific JNK isoforms in the neurotoxic properties of THC remains to be established. The present study involved treatment of rat cultured cortical neurons with THC (0.005-50 microm), and combinations of THC with the CB1 receptor antagonist, AM 251 (10 microm) and pertussis toxin (PTX; 200 ng ml-1). Antisense oligonucleotides (AS) were used to deplete neurons of JNK1 and JNK2 in order to elucidate their respective roles in THC signalling. Here we report that THC induces the activation of JNK via the CB1 receptor and its associated G-protein, Gi\/o. Treatment of cultured cortical neurons with THC resulted in a differential timeframe of activation of the JNK1 and JNK2 isoforms. Use of specific JNK1 and JNK2 AS identified activation of caspase-3 and DNA fragmentation as downstream consequences of JNK1 and JNK2 activation. The results from this study demonstrate that activation of the CB1 receptor induces JNK and caspase-3 activation, an increase in Bax expression and DNA fragmentation. The data demonstrate that the activation of both JNK1 and JNK2 isoforms is central to the THC-induced activation of the apoptotic pathway in cortical neurons.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2001, William M. Bennett wrote: “There are two types of cell death.\u00a0 The first type, necrosis, is destruction of the cell with liberation of its internal contents, causing an inflammatory action.\u00a0 The types of injuries which lead to necrosis can be:\u00a0 toxic damage, oxygen depravation, or involvement directly in infection. The second is natural cell death.\u00a0 All cells are programmed to die off at a specific time and when this happens the cell simply disappears leaving no debris.\u00a0 This type of cell death is called apoptosis.\u00a0 If something interferes with the signaling mechanism the cell either dies prematurely or it lives too long.\u00a0 In the case of premature apoptosis, the affected organ of the body begins to function poorly and eventually does not work at all.\u00a0 In delayed apoptosis, the cell does not die, though new cells continue to develop, and this phenomenon produces a tumor or cancer.Marijuana has been found to cause premature death of sperm and egg cells, leading to sterility and birth defects.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source:British Journal of Pharmacology oct 2003<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marijuana is known to cause premature cell death in germ (sperm and ovum) cells.\u00a0 Here is new research indicating that marijuana also causes premature death of brain cells.At the end is a description of apoptosis supplied by William M. Bennett, M.D. Tetrahydrocannabinol-induced neurotoxicity depends on CB1 receptor-mediated c-Jun N-terminal kinase activation in cultured cortical neurons. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}