Profile of genes showing increased expression following dopamine and methamphetamine exposure in an immortalized neuronal cell line

Methamphetamine (METH) is a drug of abuse with well-described neurodegenera tive effects. Some of the METH-induced degenerative manifestations are thou ght to be due to increased dopamine (DA) release in the cytoplasm of nerve terminals and subsequent extravasation in the synaptic cleft. Using an immo rtalized neural cell line, we have made use of the comprehensive cDNA array technology in order to compare and contrast the molecular effects of DA an d METH. We found that the two compounds do have many similar but also diffe rent effects. Since these neural cells produce no DA, these results demonst rate that many of the METH-induced responses attributed to DA might, in fac t, be intrinsic to METH itself. More biochemical studies are needed to inve stigate DA-independent METH deleterious events in the central nervous syste m.