Korean J Anat.  2008 Sep;41(3):213-221.

Immunohistochemical Study of Glucose Transporters 1 and 3 in the Mouse Hippocampus after Kainic Acid Treatment

• Kwag SJ
• Kim KH
• Kim HJ
• Kang SS
• Cho GJ
• Choi WS
• Roh GS

Abstract

Seizure activity increases glucose utilization within the brain in response to neuronal injury. In this study, we investigated the expression of two brain glucose transporter (GLUT) proteins, GLUT1 and GLUT3, in the mouse hippocampus after kainic acid (KA) treatment. Forty-eight hours after KA (30 mg/kg) injection, mice were sacrificed and a histological evaluation of KA-treated hippocampus revealed cell death using cresyl violet staining and immunohistochemistry for caspase-3. In KA-treated hippocampus, reactive astrocytic changes were confirmed by increased immunoreactivity of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Enhanced GLUT1-positive endothelial cells were present in the hippocampus after KA treatment. However, GLUT3-positive neurons were not localized to the KAtreated hippocampus. In particular, although GLUT-3 was not expressed in the hippocampus, pronounced GLUT3- positive cells were observed in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN), which controls energy metabolism. Thus, these results indicate that changes in endothelial GLUT1 and neuronal GLUT3 levels in response to neural injury may play important roles in neuroprotection against brain excitotoxicity.

Keyword

Kainic acid; Seizure; Glucose transporter; Hippocampus; Mouse

MeSH Terms

Animals
Benzoxazines
Brain
Caspase 3
Cell Death
Endothelial Cells
Energy Metabolism
Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein
Glucose
Glucose Transport Proteins, Facilitative
Hippocampus
Immunohistochemistry
Kainic Acid
Mice
Neurons
Paraventricular Hypothalamic Nucleus
Proteins
Seizures
Viola
Benzoxazines
Caspase 3
Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein
Glucose
Glucose Transport Proteins, Facilitative
Kainic Acid
Proteins