Volatile anesthetics, calcium homeostasis and apoptosis

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As an anesthesiologist, the applicant is firmly committed to advancing academic anesthesiology through basic research. His ultimate career goal is to improve peri-operative patient care, and his immediate career goal is to create more effective and safer general anesthetics. As an assistant professor in the tenure track, Dr. Wei will receive excellent training at the University of Pennsylvania. This proposal will complete his training and provide the initial transition to becoming an independent physician-scientist. Volatile genearal anesthetics are the most common agents used for maintenance of general anesthesia, but the increasing awareness of their long lasting effects on cognition and learning suggests enhanced neurodegeneration. The overall goal of this research project is to understand whether disruption of calcium homeostasis by volatile anesthetics leads to apoptosis. The immediate goal of the study is to investigate if isoflurane and sevoflurane interact with calcium homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) differently, thus contributing to neuronal apoptosis in different ways. The central hypothesis is that isoflurane, but not sevoflurane, induces neuronal apoptosis via depletion of calcium in the ER. We will test several sub hypotheses via the following specific aims: (1). Aim 1 will test that isoflurane, but not sevoflurane, induces apoptosis in both normal neurons and in a cell model of Alzheimer's disease because of its existing disruption of ER calcium. (2). Aim 2 will test the hypothesis that Isoflurane depletes, but sevoflurane maintains or increases, ER calcium contents. (3). Aim 3 will investigate if isoflurane and sevoflurane change the apoptosis-related Bcl-2 family proteins differently in cells. (4). Aim 4 will test the hypothesis that Isoflurane, but not sevoflurane, decreases the Bcl-2/Bax ratio, causing neuronal degeneration at different ages, resulting in learning deficits and/or cognitive dysfunction in the rat. We will examine neuronal apoptosis by histopathology, and learning and cognition change in animals after treatment of isoflurane or sevoflurane.