Primary Cultures of Astrocytes from Different Brain Areas of Newborn Rats and Effects of Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor

Abstract

The effects of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on the morphology and the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and glutamine synthetase (GS) in cultured astrocytes prepared from various areas of newborn rat brain was studied. The brain was dissected in two ways, either the telencephalon (area A) and the diencephalon (area B) were dissected out of the brain (without olfactory bulbs, mesencephalon and cerebellum) or the brain was cut transversely into 3 parts (areas 1, 2 and 3). Area 1 (the anterior part) included the frontal cortex, the olfactory nuclei, the neostriatum, the accumbens nucleus and the septum; area 2 (the medial part) included the cortex, hippocampus, amygdale, thalamus and hypothalamus, and area 3 (the posterior part) included the occipital cortex, the posterior part of hippocampus and thalamus and the mamillary bodies. Essentially two different morphological aspects were observed. Most cells from areas A, 1 and 3, were flat, large, presented an irregular shape and were loosely arranged; cells from areas B and 2 were essentially polygonal in shape and closely apposed to each other. The various control cultures showed nearly the same immunostaining pattern for GFAP, but different patterns for GS. Most astroglial cells responded to bFGF and became fibrous. The GFAP immunoreaction was intense and localized in the cell bodies and processes of most cells from area A, but essentially in the processes for cells from areas 1 and 2. The immunoreactivity was weaker in cells from areas B and 3. GS-positive cells, heavily and weakly stained, were found in all treated cultures, and very strongly stained cells were located in certain zones of cultures from area A. But GS-negative cells were also seen in these treated cultures as well as in control cultures. Measurements of GS activities revealed no differences. These results indicate that astrocytes from different regions of the brain in primary culture show differences in their responsiveness to bFGF. The astroglial cells from the cerebral cortex and from the thalamus seem to present the highest and the lowest response to bFGF, respectively.

Fibroblast growth factors and their receptors in the central nervous system

“…In addition both factors seemed to interfere with each other since FGF-2 inhibited the TGF-b1-mediated increase in GFAP mRNA and protein. However, suppression of GFAP expression reported by Reilly et al (1998) was contradictory to earlier reports about FGF-2 dependent induction of GFAP in astrocytes (Perraud et al 1990;Eclancher et al 1990).…”

Cellular localization and functional expression of P‐glycoprotein in rat astrocyte cultures

“…Specifically, the astrocytes display elongated and fibroblast-like morphology with short, wide cytoplasmic processes and a large cell nucleus. Other groups have reported similar morphology of rat astrocytes in culture (Miller et al 1989;Perraud et al 1990;Radany et al 1992). Biochemically, astrocytes can be characterized by the constitutive expression of GFAP, a cytoskeletal protein unique to these cells.…”

“…Other groups have reported similar morphology of rat astrocytes in culture (Miller et al . 1989; Perraud et al . 1990; Radany et al .…”

Astrogliosis in culture. IV. Effects of basic fibroblast growth factor

“…Thus, low serum concentration and pretreatment with dbc-AMP significantly reduced astrocyte proliferation in response to wounding. In contrast, addition of bFGF increased cell division in response to wounding, a predictable effect since bFGF has been shown to induce mitosis in cultured rat astrocytes (Hatten et al, 1988;Kniss and Burry, 1988;Perraud et al, 1988Perraud et al, , 1990Loret et al, 1991;Petroski et al, 1991). This Fig.…”