Neurons of the rat cervical spinal cord express vimentin and neurofilament after intraparenchymal injection of kainic acid.

NISHIDA F; SISTI MS; ZANUZZI CN; BARBEITO CG; PORTIANSKY EL

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2017 vol. 643

0304-3940

Intermediate filaments (IF) can be altered under disorders suchas neurodegenerative diseases. Kainic acid (KA) induce behavioral changesand histopathological alterations of the spinal cord of injected rats.Our goal was to evaluate the IF expression in neurons during this injurymodel. Animals were injected with KA at the C5 segment of the cervicalspinal cord and euthanized at 1, 3 and 7 post injection (pi) days.Neuronal cell counting showed a significant loss of neurons at theinjection site when compared with those of sham and non-operated animals.Immunohistochemistry for vimentin and neurofilament showed positivelabeling of perikarya in sham and KA-injected animals since day 1 pi thatlasted for the remaining experimental days. Colocalization analysisbetween enolase and vimentin or neurofilament confirmed a high index ofcolocalization in both experimental groups at day 1 pi. This indexdecreased in sham animals by day 3 pi whereas that of KA-injected animalsremained high throughout the experiment. These results may suggest thatperikarya initiate an unconventional IF expression, which may respond tothe neuronal damage induced by the mechanical injury and the excitotoxiceffect of KA. It seems that vimentin and neurofilament expression may bea necessary change to promote recovery of the damaged tissue.