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Bcl-2 over-expression fails to prevent age-related loss of calretinin positive neurons in the mouse dentate gyrus

BACKGROUND: Cognitive performance declines with increasing age. Possible cellular mechanisms underlying this age-related functional decline remain incompletely understood. Early studies attributed this functional decline to age-related neuronal loss. Subsequent studies using unbiased stereological t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Han, Mingbo, Schottler, Frank, Lei, Debin, Dong, Elizabeth Y, Bryan, Alexander, Bao, Jianxin
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569830/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16930456
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1750-1326-1-9
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Cognitive performance declines with increasing age. Possible cellular mechanisms underlying this age-related functional decline remain incompletely understood. Early studies attributed this functional decline to age-related neuronal loss. Subsequent studies using unbiased stereological techniques found little or no neuronal loss during aging. However, studies using specific cellular markers found age-related loss of specific neuronal types. To test whether there is age-related loss of specific neuronal populations in the hippocampus, and subsequently, whether over-expression of the B-cell lymphoma protein-2 (Bcl-2) in these neurons could delay possible age-related neuronal loss, we examined calretinin (CR) positive neurons in the mouse dentate gyrus during aging. RESULT: In normal mice, there was an age-related loss of CR positive cells in the dentate gyrus. At the same region, there was no significant decrease of total numbers of neurons, which suggested that age-related loss of CR positive cells was due to the decrease of CR expression in these cells instead of cell death. In the transgenic mouse line over-expressing Bcl-2 in neurons, there was an age-related loss of CR positive cells. Interestingly, there was also an age-related neuronal loss in this transgenic mouse line. CONCLUSION: These data suggest an age-related loss of CR positive neurons but not total neuronal loss in normal mice and this age-related neuronal change is not prevented by Bcl-2 over-expression.