Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41686281›Full record

ArticleCellular and molecular neurobiology2026

CREB2 Functions as a Central Mediator of Oxidative Neuronal Death Triggered by Microglial Glutamate Release Under Neuroinflammatory Conditions.

Uk Yeol Moon, Young Eun Kim, Huu Dat Nguyen, Hye Joung Choi

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cellular and molecular neurobiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

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PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Uk Yeol MoonNew Drug Development Center, Daegu Gyeongbuk Medical Innovation Foundation, 88 Dongnae-ro, Dong-gu, 41061, Daegu, Republic of Korea.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0006-3180-4708
Young Eun KimDepartment of Neurology, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, 22 Gwanpyeong-ro 170beon-gil, Dongan-gu, 14068, Anyang, Republic of Korea.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7182-6569
Huu Dat NguyenDepartment of Neurology, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, 22 Gwanpyeong-ro 170beon-gil, Dongan-gu, 14068, Anyang, Republic of Korea.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2491-5566
Hye Joung ChoiDepartment of Neurology, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, 22 Gwanpyeong-ro 170beon-gil, Dongan-gu, 14068, Anyang, Republic of Korea. hjchoi522@hallym.ac.kr.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0002-8256-0484

Funding

Korea Drug Development Fund funded by Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, and Ministry of Health and Welfare 2710086662/RS-2025-02213662National Research Foundation of Korea RS-2023-00246655 and RS-2024-00356135
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Glutamate-induced oxidative cytotoxicity is a major driver of neuronal loss in neurodegenerative diseases, yet the upstream transcriptional regulators linking oxidative stress to neuronal death remain unclear despite the known involvement of the p53-GADD45α pathway. CREB2 (ATF4) is a stress-responsive transcription factor, but its role in microglia-mediated oxidative neurotoxicity has not been fully defined. Here, we investigated CREB2 function in oxidative glutamate toxicity using HT22 hippocampal neurons, primary mouse hippocampal cells, and a kainic acid (KA)-injected rat model. Oxidative stress was induced by glutamate, intracellular ROS levels were quantified with DCFDA, and the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) was used to confirm oxidative dependency. Microglia-derived glutamate was assessed by stimulating BV2 cells with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and applying glutamate-containing conditioned medium (LPS-CM) to HT22 cells. Exogenous glutamate robustly increased CREB2 expression in HT22 and primary neurons, accompanied by ROS accumulation and cell death, whereas NAC suppressed these effects. Inhibition of p53 by siRNA or pifithrin-α (PFT-α) attenuated glutamate-induced CREB2 upregulation, and CREB2 knockdown blocked GADD45α induction and protected neurons. In Vivo, KA injection caused robust CREB2 upregulation in the damaged CA3 region. Importantly, conditioned medium from LPS-activated BV2 microglia increased CREB2 expression and ROS levels in HT22 cells in an NAC-sensitive manner, supporting a glutamate-associated oxidative mechanism rather than receptor-mediated excitotoxicity. Collectively, these results suggest that CREB2 functions between upstream p53 signaling and downstream GADD45α activation as a redox-sensitive mediator of oxidative neuronal death, and may represent a potential therapeutic target in neurodegenerative diseases associated with oxidative stress and neuroinflammation.

Indexed as

Cyclic AMP Response Element-Binding ProteinGlutamic AcidMicrogliaNeuroinflammatory DiseasesNeuronsOxidative StressAnimalsCell DeathHippocampusKainic AcidLipopolysaccharidesMaleMiceMice, Inbred C57BLRats, Sprague-DawleyReactive Oxygen SpeciesCyclic AMP Response Element-Binding ProteinGlutamic AcidKainic AcidLipopolysaccharidesReactive Oxygen SpeciesTumor Suppressor Protein p53GlutamateHippocampal neuronal cellsMicrogliaOxidative cytotoxicity

Identifiers

PMID41686281
PMCPMC12988140

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.