Altered expression of dopamine transporter in substantia nigra and striatum in postmortem human brain of Parkinson’s disease / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the altered expression of dopamine transporter (DAT) in substantia nigra and striatum in postmortem human brain of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods Immunoautoradiography was used to reveal DAT distribution in postmortem human brain. Results Strongly labeling signal of DAT was mainly found in the substantia nigra, the putamen and the caudate nucleus in controls. In contrast, it was drastically reduced in the putmen and the dorsolateral caudate nuclus in PD brains, but the ventromedial part of the caudate nucleus showed a significant sparing adjacent to the border of the lateral ventricle. In the substantia nigra, the ventral and the lateral parts of the substantia nigra showed an obvious decreasing of DAT and the reducing degree of DAT labeling signals in those regions is smaller than that in the putamen and the caudate nucleus. Quantitative analysis revealed that 90.9% and 66.7% of the labeling intensity of DAT were decreased in the putamen and the caudate nucleus as comparing with the corresponding controls respectively (P