Possible Interaction: Ethanol and Glycine

“ Ethanol potentiates glycine activation of the GlyR, and putative binding sites for alcohol are located in the transmembrane (TM) domains between and within subunits.”

“Studies over the last decade have shown that ethanol can specifically alter the function of several ligand-activated ion channels including N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), serotonin (5-HT(3)), glycine and GABA(A) receptors.”

“Effects on these channels, as well as glycine , nicotinic cholinergic, serotonergic, and other ion channels, likely contribute to the euphoric, sedative, and other acute actions of ethanol.”

“Since we have determined that ethanol will influence responses to glycine , nicotine and NMDA in some, but not all, neurons with receptors to these agonists, we hypothesize that specific receptor subtypes of these ligand-gated ion channels will be affected by ethanol.”

“As early as 1933, Widmark (Widmark, 1933) reported that when either glycine or alanine was co-administered with ethanol , lowered blood ethanol levels resulted as compared to those achieved when ethanol was administered. (”

“Indeed, glycine prevents alcohol-induced liver injury in a long-term enteral ethanol feeding rats (Tsukamoto-French) by decreasing production of TNF-alpha in the liver.”

“The results confirm the existence of an alcohol‐induced decrease in blood glucose when ethanol is given together with 1.5% glycine.”

“ Ethanol intake and preference decreased after systemic glycine treatment.”

“These results give further support to the concept of elevating central glycine levels to reduce ethanol intake and indicate that targeting the glycinergic system may represent a pharmacologic treatment principle for AUD.”

“We previously showed that a single infusion of glycine into the VTA of rats strongly reduces ethanol intake for 24h.”

“We found that the infusion of glycine into the VTA selectively reduced the intake of ethanol but not sucrose or water in rats chronically exposed to ethanol under the intermittent-access and continuous-access procedures and decreased lever-press responding for ethanol under an operant self-administration procedure.”