Alonso-Nanclares, L.
Defelipe, J.
2005-01-01
Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter
in the brain where, due to the activity of specific vesicular
glutamate transporters, it accumulates in synaptic vesicles.
The vesicular glutamate transporter 1 is found in the majority
of axon terminals that form asymmetrical (excitatory) synapses
in the rat neocortex. However, since there is no information
available regarding the distribution of vesicular glutamate
transporter 1 in the human neocortex, we have used
correlative light and electron microscopy to define its expression
in this tissue. We found that the distribution of vesicular
glutamate transporter 1-immunoreactivity is virtually identical
to that found in the rat neocortex, both at the light and
electron microscope levels. Therefore, we assessed whether
vesicular glutamate transporter 1 immunostaining might be a
useful tool to study the pathological alterations of glutamatergic
transmission in the epileptic cerebral cortex. We
analyzed the distribution of vesicular glutamate transporter 1
in the peritumoral neocortex of patients with epilepsy secondary
to low-grade tumors. In these regions, we found alterations
in the pattern of vesicular glutamate transporter
1-immunoreactivity that perfectly matched the neuronal loss
and gliosis, as well as the decrease in the number of asymmetrical
synapses identified by electron microscopy in this
tissue. Thus, vesicular glutamate transporter 1 immunostaining
appears to be a reliable and simple tool to study glutamatergic
synapses in the normal and epileptic human cerebral
cortex. © 2005 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.03.038
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Vesicular glutamate transporter 1 immunostaining in the normal and epileptic human cerebral cortex
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