The molecular cloning of glial fibrillary acidic protein in Gekko japonicus and its expression changes after spinal cord transection

Cellular & Molecular Biology Letters

Yan Liu¹  Fei Ding¹  Yongjun Wang¹  Zhengli Li²  Dehong Gao²  Xiaosong Gu¹ 

[1] Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, P.R. China$$;Department of Anatomy, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, P.R. China$$

关键词: Glial fibrillary acidic protein;    Gecko;    Regeneration;    Spinal cord;    Real-time PCR;   

DOI  :  10.2478/s11658-010-0029-x

学科分类：分子生物学，细胞生物学和基因

来源: Uniwersytet Wroclawski * Wydzial Biotechnologii / University of Wroclaw, Faculty of Biotechnology

【 摘 要 】

The glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is an astrocyte-specific member of the class III intermediate filament proteins. It is generally used as a specific marker of astrocytes in the central nervous system (CNS). We isolated a GFAP cDNA from the brain and spinal cord cDNA library of Gekko japonicus, and prepared polyclonal antibodies against gecko GFAP to provide useful tools for further immunochemistry studies. Both the real-time quantitative PCR and western blot results revealed that the expression of GFAP in the spinal cord after transection increased, reaching its maximum level after 3 days, and then gradually decreased over the rest of the 2 weeks of the experiment. Immunohistochemical analyses demonstrated that the increase in GFAP-positive labeling was restricted to the white matter rather than the gray matter. In particular, a slight increase in the number of GFAP positive star-shaped astrocytes was detected in the ventral and lateral regions of the white matter. Our results indicate that reactive astrogliosis in the gecko spinal cord took place primarily in the white matter during a short time interval, suggesting that the specific astrogliosis evaluated by GFAP expression might be advantageous in spinal cord regeneration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown