Neonatal Exposure to Lipopolysaccharide Promotes Neurogenesis of Subventricular Zone Progenitors in the Developing Neocortex of Ferrets

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a natural agonist of toll-like receptor 4 that serves a role in innate immunity. The current study evaluated the LPS-mediated regulation of neurogenesis in the subventricular zone (SVZ) progenitors, that is, the basal radial glia and intermediate progenitors (IPs), in ferrets. Ferret pups were subcutaneously injected with LPS (500 μg/g of body weight) on postnatal days (PDs) 6 and 7. Furthermore, 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EdU) and 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU) were administered on PDs 5 and 7, respectively, to label the post-proliferative and proliferating cells in the inner SVZ (iSVZ) and outer SVZ (oSVZ). A significantly higher density of BrdU single-labeled proliferating cells was observed in the iSVZ of LPS-exposed ferrets than in controls but not in post-proliferative EdU single-labeled and EdU/BrdU double-labeled self-renewing cells. BrdU single-labeled cells exhibited a lower proportion of Tbr2 immunostaining in LPS-exposed ferrets (22.2%) than in controls (42.6%) and a higher proportion of Ctip2 immunostaining in LPS-exposed ferrets (22.2%) than in controls (8.6%). The present findings revealed that LPS modified the neurogenesis of SVZ progenitors. Neonatal LPS exposure facilitates the proliferation of SVZ progenitors, followed by the differentiation of Tbr2-expressing IPs into Ctip2-expressing immature neurons.