Peptide Expression in GABAergic Neurons in Rat Suprachiasmatic Nucleus in Comparison with Other Forebrain Structures: A Double Labeling In Situ Hybridization StudyMasaki Tanakaa, Tomoyuki Matsudab, Yasufumi Shigeyoshic, Yasuhiko Ibataa, and Hitoshi Okamuraca Department of Anatomy, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan b Department of Anesthesiology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan c Department of Anatomy and Brain Science, Kobe University School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan Correspondence to: Hitoshi Okamura, Dept. of Anatomy and Brain Science, Kobe U. School of Medicine, 7-5-1 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650, Japan. We investigated the characteristics of GABAergic neurons in the rat suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in normal untreated rats by examination of co-expressed peptides. We adopted double labeling in situ hybridization using a digoxigenin-labeled glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) riboprobe and 35S-labeled peptide riboprobes. GAD mRNA-positive neurons were distributed throughout the SCN from the rostral to the caudal pole. In the dorsomedial part of the SCN, most GAD mRNA-positive neurons co-expressed arginine vasopressin mRNA. In the ventrolateral part of the SCN, about two thirds of GAD mRNA-positive neurons co-expressed vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) mRNA. Co-expression of GAD and somatostatin mRNA was observed in virtually all neurons of the intermediate part of the SCN. In contrast, these peptidergic traits were poorly expressed in hypothalamic GABAergic neurons outside the SCN. Vasopressin mRNA-positive cells in the supraoptic nucleus did not express GAD mRNA, and co-expression of somatostatin mRNA and GAD mRNA was rare in the periventricular hypothalamic nucleus. Similarly, the VIP mRNA co-expression ratio of GABAergic neurons in the cerebral cortex was far lower than that in the SCN. (J Histochem Cytochem 45:1231-1237, 1997) Key Words: glutamic acid decarboxylase, arginine vasopressin, vasoactive intestinal peptide, somatostatin, mRNA, suprachiasmatic nucleus
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||