Bombycis corpus (BC) or Bombyx Batryticatus, a batryticated silkworm and white-stiff silkworm, is a drug consisting of the dried larva of silkworm, Mobyz mori L., dead and stiffened due to the
infection of Beauveria (Bals.) Vuill. In a previous paper (Kim et al., Pharmacol. Res., 43, 12-16, 2001), BC was shown to protect
amyloid-beta-induced cytotoxicity. In the present study, we have found that BCE can prevent or reduce the neurotoxic actions in the hippocampus of the
glutamate agonists N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (
NMDA) in vitro or
alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (
AMPA) and
kainic acid in vitro. Pre-treatment with BCE (0, 1, 2, 5, and 10 microg/ml for 6-8 h) protected primary hippocampal cultures from embryonic day 18 (E18) embryos against
NMDA-induced toxicity (0.1, 1, 10, and 50 nM/ml). BCE added either with
NMDA (1 mM) or 1 h later had lesser, but still significant, protective actions. BCE also reduced
NMDA-induced toxicity (1 mM). BCE (10 microg/ml) protected cultured neurons against the neurotoxic actions of either
AMPA (25 microM) or
kainic acid (1 mM) as well. Because the release of
glutamate has been implicated in the neural damage after
cerebral ischemia and other neural insults, these results suggest that BCE may contribute significantly to protect human brain to such damage.