Hernandez-Martinez H, Arias-Carrion O, Drucker-Colin R, Murillo-Rodriguez E (2006) Transplant of hypocretin neurons into the lateral hypothalamus of rats with lesions of the hypocretin neurons. Neuroscience 2006 Abstracts 719.2. Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta, GA.
Summary: Narcolepsy, a disabling neurological disorder is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeps attacks, sleep fragmentation, and cataplexy. This sleep disorder has been linked to a loss of neurons containing the neuropeptide hypocretin (HCRT). Our group has developed an experimental model to induce narcolepsy in rats. The bilateral administration of the neurotoxin hypocretin-2-saporin (HCRT2-SAP) into the lateral hypothalamus (LH) of rats destroys the HCRT neurons. Therefore, the loss of HCRT neurons leads to developing narcolepsy. In order to replace the HCRT lost neurons by HCRT2-SAP, a suspension of cells from the posterior hypothalamus of 3-5 days old rat pups were stained with GFP and injected into the LH of lesioned rats. Animals were sacrificed 21 days after transplant, and cryostat-cut coronal sections of the LH sections were examined for presence of HCRT-immunofluorescence neurons. Preliminary data shows that HCRT transplanted neurons into the LH of lesioned rats were present at the target area 21 days after implant. These somata were similar in size and appearance to adult rat HCRT-immunoreactive neurons. Our results indicate that HCRT neurons obtained from rat pups can be grafted into a host brain and graft survives during 21 days. Importantly, our study addresses the possibility to replace HCRT neurons in narcolepsy in order to reverse this disease.
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