cells Article Assessing the Anti-Inflammatory Activity of the Anxiolytic Drug Buspirone Using CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing in LPS-Stimulated BV-2 Microglial Cells Sarah Thomas Broome 1,†, Teagan Fisher 1,†, Alen Faiz 2, Kevin A. Keay 3 , Giuseppe Musumeci 4 , Ghaith Al-Badri 1 and Alessandro Castorina 1,3,* 1 Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience (LCMN), School of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia;
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[email protected] (G.A.-B.) 2 Respiratory Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology (RBMB) Group, School of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia;
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[email protected] † These authors equally contributed to the present work. Abstract: Buspirone is an anxiolytic drug with robust serotonin receptor 1A (Htr1a) agonist activities. Citation: Thomas Broome, S.; Fisher, However, evidence has demonstrated that this drug also targets the dopamine D3 receptor (Drd3), T.; Faiz, A.; Keay, K.A.; Musumeci, G.; where it acts as a potent antagonist. In vivo, Drd3 blockade is neuroprotective and reduces inflamma- Al-Badri, G.; Castorina, A.