Using in situ hybridization, we examined the distribution of the mRNA encoding for the growth-associated protein GAP-43 in the brain stem of adult rats. GAP-43 was expressed at the highest level in the nucleus raphe dorsalis (NDR), nucleus centralis superior (NCS), substantia nigra compacta (SNc), ventral tegmental area (VTA), and locus coeruleus (LC). An intermediate level of signal was detect...

Phosphorylation of the nervous system-specific growth cone protein GAP-43 by kinase C in vivo occurs exclusively in growth cones and distal axons, and the onset of this phosphorylation is delayed relative to the onset of axonogenesis, with the delay predicted on the time needed for axons to reach the vicinity of their targets (Meiri et al., 1991). We have used a subcellular fraction of intact g...

PURPOSE To examine whether adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector-mediated overexpression of growth-associated protein-43 (GAP-43) has protective or deleterious effects on retinal ganglion cell (RGC) survival in laser-induced chronic intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation injury. METHODS Adult Fischer 344 rats received unilateral intravitreal injection of either normal saline, AAV-green fluorescen...

An acylation/deacylation cycle is necessary to maintain the steady-state subcellular distribution and biological activity of S-acylated peripheral proteins. Despite the progress that has been made in identifying and characterizing palmitoyltransferases (PATs), much less is known about the thioesterases involved in protein deacylation. In this work, we investigated the deacylation of growth-asso...

HuD is a neuronal-specific RNA-binding protein that binds to and stabilizes the mRNAs of growth-associated protein-43 (GAP-43) and other neuronal proteins. HuD expression increases during brain development, nerve regeneration, and learning and memory, suggesting that this protein is important for controlling gene expression during developmental and adult plasticity. To examine the function of H...

Arachidonic acid (AA), a cis-unsaturated fatty acid that activates certain subspecies of protein kinase C (PKC), has been proposed to act as a retrograde messenger in modifying the efficacy of synapses during long-term potentiation (LTP). One prominent PKC substrate of the nerve terminal membrane, GAP-43 (F1, B-50, neuromodulin), shows an increase in phosphorylation that correlates with the per...

Hippocampal neurons growing in culture initially extend several, short minor processes that have the potential to become either axons or dendrites. The first expression of polarity occurs when one of these minor processes begins to elongate rapidly, becoming the axon. Before axonal outgrowth, the growth-associated protein GAP-43 is distributed equally among the growth cones of the minor process...