Direct evidence for the up-regulation of Vps34 regulated by PKCgamma during short-term treatment with morphine.

In this study, we investigated whether PKCgamma could be associated with functional changes of vacuolar protein sorting 34 (Vps34) during morphine treatment using primary cultures of cerebral cortical neurons from mice. The immunoprecipitation analysis showed that p-PKCgamma and Vps34 are present together in molecular complexes. The treatment with morphine increases PKCgamma and Vps34 levels. Phosphorylation of PKCgamma increased Vps34 level. The inhibition of morphine-induced increase in PKCgamma phosphorylation reduced Vps34 level. These results indicates that opioid receptor activation increases PKCgamma phosphorylation in the neurons and, in turn, upregulates Vps34 during short-term treatment with neurons.