Altered levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have been reported in neurologically diseased human brains. Therefore, it is important to understand how the expression of BDNF is controlled under pathophysiological as well as physiological conditions. Here, we report a method to visualize changes in BDNF expression in the living mouse brain using bioluminescence imaging (BLI). We previously generated a novel transgenic mouse strain, Bdnf-Luciferase (Luc), to monitor changes in Bdnf expression; however, it was difficult to detect brain-derived signals in the strain using BLI with d-luciferin, probably because of incomplete substrate distribution and light penetration. We demonstrate that TokeOni, which uniformly distributes throughout the whole mouse body after systematic injection and produces a near-infrared bioluminescence light, was suitable for detecting signals from the brain of the Bdnf-Luc mouse. We clearly detected brain-derived bioluminescence signals that crossed the skin and skull after intraperitoneal injection of TokeOni. However, repeated BLI using TokeOni should be limited, because repeated injection of TokeOni on the same day reduced the bioluminescence signal, presumably by product inhibition. We successfully visualized kainic acid-induced Bdnf expression in the hippocampus and sensory stimulation-induced Bdnf expression in the visual cortex. Taken together, non-invasive near-infrared BLI using Bdnf-Luc mice with TokeOni allowed us to evaluate alterations in BDNF levels in the living mouse brain. This will enable better understanding of the involvement of BDNF expression in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of neurological diseases.

The degradation behavior of eight tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs; amitriptyline, amoxapine (AMX), imipramine, clomipramine, desipramine, doxepin, dothiepin, and nortriptyline) in artificial gastric juice was investigated to estimate their pharmacokinetics in the stomach. As a result, among the eight TCAs, only AMX was degraded in artificial gastric juice. The degradation was a pseudo first-order reaction; activation energy (Ea) was 88.70 kJ/mol and activation entropy (ΔS) was 80.73 J/K•mol. On the other hand, the recovery experiment revealed that the degradation product did not revert to AMX and accordingly, this reaction was considered to be irreversible. In the AMX degradation experiment, peaks considered to be degradation products A (I) and B (II) were detected at retention times of around 3 min and 30 min in LC/UV measurements, respectively. Structural analysis revealed that compound (I) was [2-(2-aminophenoxy)-5-chlorophenyl]-piperazin-1-yl-methanone, a new compound, and compound (II) was 2-chlorodibenzo[b,f][1,4]oxazepin-11(10H)one. As for the degradation behavior, it was estimated that AMX was degraded into (II) via (I), i.e., (II) was the final product. The results are expected to be useful in clinical chemistry and forensic science, including the estimation of drugs to be used at the time of judicial dissection and suspected drug addiction.