Hippocampal distribution of vesicular glutamate transporter 1 in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

PURPOSE: Vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUTs) are responsible for loading synaptic vesicles with glutamate, determining the phenotype of glutamatergic neurons, and have been implicated in the regulation of quantal size and presynaptic plasticity. We analyzed VGLUT subtype expression in normal human hippocampus and tested the hypothesis that alterations in VGLUT expression may contribute to long-term changes in glutamatergic transmission reported in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). METHODS: VGLUT immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, in situ hybridization, Western blotting, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) were performed on biopsies from TLE patients without (non-HS) and with hippocampal sclerosis (HS) and compared to autopsy controls and rat hippocampus. VGLUT1 expression was compared with synaptophysin, neuropeptide Y (NPY), and Timm's staining. RESULTS: VGLUT1 was the predominant VGLUT in human hippocampus and appeared to be localized to presynaptic glutamatergic terminals. In non-HS hippocampi, VGLUT1 protein levels were increased compared to control and HS hippocampi in all subfields. In HS hippocampi VGLUT1 expression was decreased in subfields with severe neuronal loss, but strongly up-regulated in the dentate gyrus, characterized by mossy fiber sprouting. DISCUSSION: VGLUT1 is used as marker for glutamatergic synapses in the human hippocampus. In HS hippocampi VGLUT1 up-regulation in the dentate gyrus probably marks new glutamatergic synapses formed by mossy fiber sprouting. Our data indicate that non-HS patients have an increased capacity to store glutamate in vesicles, most likely due to an increase in translational processes or upregulation of VGLUT1 in synapses from afferent neurons outside the hippocampus. This up-regulation may increase glutamatergic transmission, and thus contribute to increased extracellular glutamate levels and hyperexcitability.

Possible role of the innate immunity in temporal lobe epilepsy.

PURPOSE: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is a multifactorial disease often involving the hippocampus. So far the etiology of the disease has remained elusive. In some pharmacoresistant TLE patients the hippocampus is surgically resected as treatment. To investigate the involvement of the immune system in human TLE, we performed large-scale gene expression profiling on this human hippocampal tissue. METHODS: Microarray analysis was performed on hippocampal specimen from TLE patients with and without hippocampal sclerosis and from autopsy controls (n = 4 per group). We used a common reference pool design to perform an unbiased three-way comparison between the two patient groups and the autopsy controls. Differentially expressed genes were statistically analyzed for significant overrepresentation of gene ontology (GO) classes. RESULTS: Three-way analysis identified 618 differentially expressed genes. GO analysis identified immunity and defense genes as most affected in TLE. Particularly, the chemokines CCL3 and CCL4 were highly (>10-fold) upregulated. Other highly affected gene classes include neuropeptides, chaperonins (protein protection), and the ubiquitin/proteasome system (protein degradation). DISCUSSION: The strong upregulation of CCL3 and CCL4 implicates these chemokines in the etiology and pathogenesis of TLE. These chemokines, which are mainly expressed by glia, may directly or indirectly affect neuronal excitability. Genes and gene clusters identified here may provide targets for developing new TLE therapies and candidates for genetic research.

The nucleoporin RanBP2 tethers the cAMP effector Epac1 and inhibits its catalytic activity.

Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) is a second messenger that relays a wide range of hormone responses. In this paper, we demonstrate that the nuclear pore component RanBP2 acts as a negative regulator of cAMP signaling through Epac1, a cAMP-regulated guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Rap. We show that Epac1 directly interacts with the zinc fingers (ZNFs) of RanBP2, tethering Epac1 to the nuclear pore complex (NPC). RanBP2 inhibits the catalytic activity of Epac1 in vitro by binding to its catalytic CDC25 homology domain. Accordingly, cellular depletion of RanBP2 releases Epac1 from the NPC and enhances cAMP-induced Rap activation and cell adhesion. Epac1 also is released upon phosphorylation of the ZNFs of RanBP2, demonstrating that the interaction can be regulated by posttranslational modification. These results reveal a novel mechanism of Epac1 regulation and elucidate an unexpected link between the NPC and cAMP signaling.