Staining two subpopulations of purkinje neurons in rat cerebellum

TANDLER, CJ; RIOS, H; PELLEGRINO DE IRALDI, A.

Comunicaciones Biológicas

López Ed.

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 1996 vol. 14 p. 33 - 37

0326-1956

Two subpopulations of Purkinje cells have been identified in paraf-fin sections of glutaraldehyde or Bouin fixed rat and chick cerebellum. They showed a differential affinity to two sulphonated acid dyes acid fuchsin and light green when a treatment with acid picric was interposed between them. The two subsets of Purkinje neurons staining differentially by the method differ in their protein content in both somata and dendrites. They occurred in all coronal or saggital sections, and in patches in the hemi-spheres and in the vermis. Their relative proportion varies from lobule. Differences in coloration of granule cells were also attained by the method. A second method uses potassium permanganate as the sole staining reagent. In this method Purkinje cells appeared as brownish and deep brown stained neurons, the last ones corresponding to those intensely stained with acid dyes. The results obtained indicated that those subpopulations are not re-producible artifacts and reflect real differences between them. The tech-nique holds promise for identifying and localizing subpopulations of Purkinje cells differing in their protein content under normal and experi-mental conditions and for their further characterization by combined stain-ing and immunohistochemical procedures.