L dopa methyl ester

After 3 weeks of recovery, a set of Nf1^+/− and WT animals were treated daily for 9 consecutive days with benserazide hydrochloride (10 mg/kg i.p., Sigma-Aldrich), followed 20 minutes later by administration of L-DOPA methyl ester (Sigma-Aldrich), using an escalating dosing regimen with each dose administered for 3 consecutive days (5, 10 and 20 mg/kg i.p.). Similarly, Ras-GRF1 OE mice and their WT littermates were treated for 9 consecutive days with an escalating L-DOPA dosing regimen (3, 6 and 12 mg/kg i.p.) plus benserazide. In all cases control animals were treated daily with saline.
A second group of hemiparkinsonian Nf1^+/− mice was used to assess the effect of lovastatin on development of LID. Lovastatin (Mevinolin; Sigma-Aldrich), in the lactone form, was dissolved in ethanol and incubated at 50 °C in 0.1 N NaOH for 2 hours for the conversion to the sodium salt. Volume was adjusted with water and pH was adjusted to 7.5 with HCl^{23 (link),51 (link)}. 3-weeks after lesion, mice were pretreated with lovastatin (20 mg/kg i.p.) or 0.9% saline for 3 days. Afterwards, for 10 consecutive days, mice received 20 mg/kg of L-DOPA 2.5 h after lovastatin or saline administration.

L-DOPA methyl ester and benserazide hydrochloride (peripheral DOPA decarboxylase inhibitor) (Sigma-Aldrich, Stockholm, Sweden) were freshly dissolved in saline and co-administered subcutaneously (s.c.) at the doses of 6 and 12 mg/kg, respectively. The injection volume was 1.0 ml/kg body weight.