Aqueous extract of Launaea acanthodes induces glutamate uptake and GABA release in astrocyte cell culture via a ROS scavenging mediated process

•Aqueous extract from Launaea acanthodes induces GABA release from astrocytes.•GABA release depends on glutamate uptake.•Launaea acanthodes increases cell viability by reduction of ROS level.•Antiepileptic effect of Launaea acanthodes is mediated via neurotransmitter balance. Launaea acanthodes is extensively used in the semiarid region of Iran for treatment of seizure. However, the underlying mechanism has not been studied well. In our previous study we showed that Launaea acanthodes extract could effectively stimulate GABA release from PC12 cell culture. The critical role of astrocytes in epileptic brain in regulation of neurotransmitter balance in central nervous system encouraged us to investigate the effect of Launaea acanthodes extract on GABA and glutamate release from astrocytes. Our results indicated that LA extract could stimulates both glutamate uptake and GABA release by astrocytes. The results confirmed this fact that GABA release by astrocytes in response to LA treatment is a glutamate uptake-dependent process. We showed that stimulation of GABA release by Launaea acanthodes is a gene expression based process which depends on glutamate uptake. We propose that glutamate uptake via glutamate transporter 3 could activate expression of glutamate decarboxylase which in turn transforms uptaken glutamate into GABA.