Neuroprotective effect of deprenyl on motoneurons of spinal cord after axotomy of peripheral nerves such as sciatic has been well established. Deprenyl is an inhibitor of monoamine oxidase type-B (MAO-B). The main function of this agent is the release of neurotransmitters from pre-synaptic terminals. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that is synthesized by choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and...

Plakoglobin directly interacts with cadherins and plays an essential role in the assembly of adherens junctions and desmosomes. Recently we have reported that multiple cadherin binding sites are localized along the arm repeat region of plakoglobin. To demonstrate functionally and specificity of these sites in vivo we constructed a set of chimeric proteins containing a plakoglobin sequence fused...

Synaptophysin and synaptobrevin 2 associate closely with packaging and storage of synaptic vesicles and transmitter release, and both play important roles in the development of rat cochlea. We examined the differential expression of synaptophysin and synaptobrevin 2 in the developing Sprague-Dawley rat cochlea, and investigated the relationship between their expression and auditory development....

Biogenesis and recycling of synaptic vesicles are accompanied by sorting processes that preserve the molecular composition of the compartments involved. In the present study, we have addressed the targeting of synaptobrevin 2/VAMP2 (vesicle-associated membrane protein 2), a critical component of the synaptic vesicle--fusion machinery, in a heterotypic context where its sorting is not confounded...

OBJECTIVE To study the importance of NB84, synaptophysin and AgNOR and explore the quantitative association of these factors with diagnosis and outcome as well as the association between NB84 and AgNOR and other tumor and stromal factors in twenty-eight peripheral neuroblastic tumors. METHODS We assessed AgNORs, NB84, synaptophysin and several other markers in tumor tissues from 28 patients w...

Although environmental enrichment improves spatial memory and alters synaptic plasticity in aged rodents, it is unclear whether all types of enrichment treatments yield similar benefits. The present study examined the effects in aged male mice of three types of enrichment on spatial memory in Morris water maze and radial arm maze tasks, and on levels of the presynaptic protein synaptophysin in ...

Previous studies of postnatal synaptic development in human frontal cortex have shown that synaptic density rises after birth, reaches a plateau in childhood and then decreases to adult levels by late adolescence. A similar pattern has been seen in nonhuman primate cortex. These earlier studies in human cortex are limited, however, by significant age gaps in study subjects at critical inflectio...

Syntaxin-1 (STX1) is a recently described highly sensitive and specific neuroendocrine marker. We evaluated the applicability of STX1 as an immunohistochemical marker in pulmonary neoplasms (NENs). compared with established markers, including insulinoma-associated protein 1 (INSM1). Typical carcinoids (n = 33), atypical 7), small cell lung carcinomas ([SCLCs] n 30), large 17) were immunostained...