Differential survival of fetal and adult neurons and non-neuronal cells exposed chronically to ethanol in cell culture.

Neural cell cultures of dissociated dorsal root ganglia (DRG) were used to investigate the effect of chronic ethanol exposure on the differential survival of fetal and adult neurons and non-neuronal cells. After 12 days of culture in ethanol (20 DIV), counts were made of both neurons and non-neural cells. Unexpectedly, the adult neurons showed a slightly greater degeneration with increasing ethanol than fetal neurons; the adult and the fetal neurons had LD50s of 1.78 and 2.08 gm% respectively. In contrast, for the non-neuronal cells the differential response was reversed; the fetal non neuronal cells were more affected than the adult non neuronal cells with LD50s of 0.7 gm% and 0.94 gm% for fetal and adult non-neuronal cells respectively. Also independent of developmental stage, the non-neuronal cells were 2 to 3 times more sensitive (in terms of survival) to increasing ethanol than the neurons. Electron microscopic examination suggested an increased amount of lipofuscin and dilated endoplasmic reticulum in the adult neurons exposed to ethanol. The possible significance of the results to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is discussed.