Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
We investigated the mechanisms of neurotoxicity of a pyrethroid pesticide deltamethrin (DM) focusing on proteolytic systems. DM dose-dependently increased expression of autophagy markers LC3-II and p62 and induced apoptosis in the Neuro2a cells. The expression of mitochondria markers was decreased by DM and co-localized with LC3-II, which suggests the accumulation of autolysosomes containing damaged mitochondria. The amount of ubiquitinated protein was increased by DM while proteasome activities were decreased. These results revealed that DM induced neurotoxicity caused by mitophagy activation and proteasome inhibition.