Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 369, Issue 1, 7 October 2004, Pages 39-43
Neuroscience Letters

Immunohistochemical study of the distribution of neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels in the nNOS knock-out mouse cerebellum

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2004.07.047Get rights and content

Abstract

Nitric oxide (NO) participates in synaptic plasticity, neuronal development, and apoptosis. The involvement of NO and ionic calcium in synaptic plasticity imply that NO may exert an effect on Ca2+ channels. Therefore, we investigated changes in the expressions of calcium channel subunits (Cav1.2/α1C, Cav1.3/α1D, Cav2.1/α1A, and Cav2.2/α1B) in nNOS knock-out (−/−) (nNOS(−/−)) mouse cerebellum using an immunohistochemical approach. We found that the immunoreactivities of the Cav1.2 and Cav1.3 subunits were reduced in the cell bodies of Purkinje cells in these mice and that the signal of the Cav1.2 subunit in neurons and of the Cav1.3 subunit in the neuropils of nNOS(−/−) mice cerebellar nuclei were significantly down-regulated. We show, for the first time, that prolonged NO deficiency in the cerebellum may affect calcium channel protein expressions, especially, of the Cav1.2 and Cav1.3 subunits.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by grant No. R01-2003-000-10099-0 from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation. We extend our thanks for Dr. Oh (Genetic Resources Center, KRIBB, Taejon, Korea) for kindly donating the experimental materials.

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