Expression of Cholinergic Markers and Characterization of Splice Variants during Ontogenesis of Rat Dorsal Root Ganglia Neurons.
Int J Mol Sci
; 22(11)2021 May 23.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34071104
ABSTRACT
Dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons synthesize acetylcholine (ACh), in addition to their peptidergic nature. They also release ACh and are cholinoceptive, as they express cholinergic receptors. During gangliogenesis, ACh plays an important role in neuronal differentiation, modulating neuritic outgrowth and neurospecific gene expression. Starting from these data, we studied the expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and vesicular ACh transporter (VAChT) expression in rat DRG neurons. ChAT and VAChT genes are arranged in a "cholinergic locus", and several splice variants have been described. Using selective primers, we characterized splice variants of these cholinergic markers, demonstrating that rat DRGs express R1, R2, M, and N variants for ChAT and V1, V2, R1, and R2 splice variants for VAChT. Moreover, by RT-PCR analysis, we observed a progressive decrease in ChAT and VAChT transcripts from the late embryonic developmental stage (E18) to postnatal P2 and P15 and in the adult DRG. Interestingly, Western blot analyses and activity assays demonstrated that ChAT levels significantly increased during DRG ontogenesis. The modulated expression of different ChAT and VAChT splice variants during development suggests a possible differential regulation of cholinergic marker expression in sensory neurons and confirms multiple roles for ACh in DRG neurons, both in the embryo stage and postnatally.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Sensory Receptor Cells
/
Choline O-Acetyltransferase
/
Vesicular Acetylcholine Transport Proteins
/
Cholinergic Neurons
/
Ganglia, Spinal
/
Nerve Tissue Proteins
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Mol Sci
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italia