Neuroprotective efficacy of Nω-nitro-L-arginine after focal cerebral ischemia in the mouse and inhibition of cortical nitric oxide synthase

Abstract The neuroprotective effects of various doses of N ω - nitro- L -arginine have been correlated with the degree of N ω - nitro- L - arginine-induced inhibition of cortical nitric oxide synthase activity measured ex vivo. Following focal cerebral ischemia induced by permanent occlusion of middle cerebral artery in the mouse, repeated administration of 1 mg/kg i.p. of N ω - nitro- L -arginine (beginning 5 min after surgery) reproducibly decreased by 66–76% the infract volume measured at 6 days post-occlusion. This dose of N ω - nitro- L -arginine decreased cortical nitric oxide (NO) synthase activity by 70–73%. The neuroprotective efficacy of N ω - nitro- L -arginine increased dose-dependently over the range of doses of 0.1–1 mg/kg. Within this dose range of N ω - nit L -arginine there was a good parallelism between the extent of inhibition of cortical NO synthase activity measured ex vivo and the degree of neuroprotection. However, higher doses of N ω - nitro- L -arginine (3 and 10 mg/kg i.p.), which inhibited NO synthase activity more effectively (up to 94%) failed to significantly reduce the infarct size. Repeated administrations of increasing doses of L -arginine (up to 30 mg/kg i.p.) with a low dose of N ω - nitro- L -arginine (1 mg/kg i.p.) caused a dose-dependent reduction in the neuroprotective efficacy of N ω - nitro- L -arginine while the extent of NO synthase inhibition measured ex vivo did not decrease significantly. These results demonstrate that, after a focal cerebral ischemia in the mouse, low doses of N ω - nitro- L -arginine are neuroprotective while high doses are ineffective and suggest that a partial inhibition of NO synthase is sufficient to obtain an optimal neuroprotective effect.