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Journal article

Differential expression of the cationic amino acid transporter 2(B) in the adult rat brain.

  • 2001-07-18
Published in:
  • Brain research. Molecular brain research. - 2001
Age Factors
Amino Acid Transport Systems, Basic
Animals
Arginine
Brain Chemistry
Carrier Proteins
Creatine
Gene Expression
Immunohistochemistry
In Situ Hybridization
Lipopolysaccharides
Membrane Proteins
Neurons
Nitric Oxide
Oligodendroglia
RNA, Messenger
Rats
English L-Arginine is a substrate for the synthesis of proteins, nitric oxide (NO), creatine, urea, proline, glutamate, polyamines and agmatine. In the central nervous system (CNS), arginine is extracted from the blood and exchanged by cells through carriers called cationic amino acid transporters (CAT) and belonging to the so-called system y+. In order to better understand the arginine transport in the CNS, we studied in detail the regional distribution of the cells expressing the CAT2(B) transcript in the adult rat brain by non-radioisotopic in situ hybridization. We show that CAT2(B) is expressed in neurons and oligodendrocytes throughout the brain, but is not detected in astrocytes. The pattern of localization of CAT2(B) in the normal adult rat brain fits closely that of CRT1, a specific creatine transporter. Our study demonstrates that the in vivo expression of CAT2(B) differs from that reported in vitro, implying that local cellular interactions should be taken into account in studies of gene regulation of the CAT2(B) gene. Our work suggests that CAT2(B) may play a role in case of increased NO production as well as arginine or creatine deficiency in the brain.
Language
  • English
Open access status
green
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Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/277861
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