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J. J. Ghosh ¹, A. K. Ghosh ², M. Dattachoudhury ², P. Chakrabarti ³, R. Basu ², P. Nandy ²

Affiliations
1 Biochemistry Department, Calcutta University, Calcutta - 700 019, IN
2 Physics Department, Jadavpur University, Calcutta - 700 032, IN
3 Chemistry Department, Bose Institute, Calcutta - 700 009, IN

Abstract

The Lipid perturbation hypothesis of the mechanism of psychoactivity of Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is already established and the morphological alteration of rat brain synaptosomal membrane induced by high THC concentration has been reported. But how the change in lipid ordering is related to the morphological change is not yet fully realised. Using an excimer-forming fluorescent probe, pyrene as the reporter molecule, we have studied for the first time, the effect of high dose of this drug on the lipid ordering of rat brain synaptosomal membrane whose THC absorption tendency is very high. Our result shows that below the drug concentration of 1.75 × 10^-2 mg/mg of protein the membrane is less ordered and above this concentration at 3.5 × 10^-2 mg/mg of protein it is more ordered. This indicates that change in lipid ordering is the preincidence of the morphological-damage of synaptosomal membrane in the molecular level and the drug concentration needed for the alteration of membrane ordering is much lower than that needed for the microscopic morphological alteration.

Keywords

Synaptosome, Lipid Ordering, Δ⁹-Tetrahydrocannabinol, Morphological Alteration.

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B. Pal ¹, J. J. Ghosh ²

Affiliations
1 AB60 Salt Lake, Calcutta-700064, US
2 Department of Biochemistry, University College of Science, Calcutta University, Calcutta-700019, IN

Abstract

Although an important component of the ruminant feeds, fibre has been considered for long an unimportant part of human diet. In the last few years, there has been a reawakening of interest concerning the possible role of this dietary constituent in man.

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