Cacialli, Pietro (2016) BRAIN DERIVED NEUROTROPHIC FACTOR (BDNF) EXPRESSION IN POSTNATAL AND ADULT ZEBRAFISH BRAIN AND RELATED CHANGES FOLLOWING MECHANICAL INJURY. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Item Type: Tesi di dottorato
Resource language: English
Title: BRAIN DERIVED NEUROTROPHIC FACTOR (BDNF) EXPRESSION IN POSTNATAL AND ADULT ZEBRAFISH BRAIN AND RELATED CHANGES FOLLOWING MECHANICAL INJURY
Creators:
Creators
Email
Cacialli, Pietro
pietro.cacialli@unina.it
Date: 29 March 2016
Number of Pages: 95
Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Department: Medicina Veterinaria e Produzioni Animali
Scuola di dottorato: Scienze veterinarie per la produzione e la sanità
Dottorato: Organismi modello nella ricerca biomedica e veterinaria
Ciclo di dottorato: 28
Coordinatore del Corso di dottorato:
nome
email
de Girolamo, Paolo
degirola@unina.it
Tutor:
nome
email
Lucini, Carla
UNSPECIFIED
Date: 29 March 2016
Number of Pages: 95
Keywords: Zebrafish; BDNF; Injury
Settori scientifico-disciplinari del MIUR: Area 07 - Scienze agrarie e veterinarie > VET/01 - Anatomia degli animali domestici
Area 07 - Scienze agrarie e veterinarie > VET/02 - Fisiologia veterinaria
Date Deposited: 12 Apr 2016 12:19
Last Modified: 20 May 2017 01:00
URI: http://www.fedoa.unina.it/id/eprint/10795

Collection description

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a member of the neurotrophin family, has emerged as an active mediator in many essential functions in the central nervous system of mammals. BDNF plays significant roles in neurogenesis, neuronal maturation and/or synaptic plasticity and is involved in cognitive functions such as learning and memory. Despite the vast literature present in mammals, studies devoted to BDNF in the brain of other animal models are scarse. Zebrafish is a teleost fish widely known for developmental genetic studies and is emerging as model for translational neuroscience research. In addition, its brain shows many sites of adult neurogenesis allowing higher regenerative properties after traumatic injuries. The topic of this dissertation is the study of the distribution of bdnf mRNAs in the larval and in adult zebrafish brain, and related changes of expression following mechanical injury of telencephalon. In the brain of 7 days old larvae and mature female and male zebrafish in situ hybridization showed that bdnf mRNAs are widely expressed., mostly in the forebrain. Combining immunohistochemistry with in situ hybridization to characterize the phenotype of bdnf-expressing cells, showed that bdnf mRNAs are never expressed by radial glial cells or proliferating cells. By contrast, bdnf transcripts are expressed in cells with neuronal phenotype in all brain regions investigated. Further experimental investigation was conducted in dorsal telencephalon of adult zebrafish after mechanic injury. This was obtained by a stab wound to mimic the cellular phenomena of adult traumatic brain injury, which is usually caused by an impact to the head that results in a mechanical insult to the brain. Particularly, the stab wound was made on telencephalon because it comprises the most studied neuronal stem cell and its dorso lateral zone is retained to be equivalent to the medial pallium (hippocampus) of mammals. This latter contains one of the two constitutive neurogenic niches of mammals. The zebrafish telencephalon, along the entire studied period from the lesion (1, 4, 7, 15 days) showed a general increase of bdnf expression, quantifiable both through BDNF levels in extracts and BDNF positive cell numbers. More specifically, bdnf expression was exclusively limited to neuronal populations, as suggested by co-localization of BDNF mRNA and the neuronal makers Huc/d and acetylated-tubulin. In conclusion the study provides the first demonstration that the brain of zebrafish produces BDNF in neurons and the response concerning bdnf expression after telencephalic injury resulted substantial similar to that reported in mammals, indicating that BDNF is generally involved in the first response to brain damage. However, despite these comparable results, the regenerative properties of fish and mammals are dramatically different, suggesting the existence in fish of peculiar still unknown molecular programs, which might have specific roles after injury.

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