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Unité Mixte de Recherche 549 (K.B., C.L., J.E., A.F.-B.), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche, Médicale Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris René Descartes, Institut Fédératif de Recherche Broca Sainte Anne, 75014 Paris, France; and Molecular Neuroendocrinology (I.C.A.F.R.), National Institute of Medical Research, London NW7 1AA, United Kingdom
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. Jacques Epelbaum, Unité Mixte de Recherche 549, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris René Descartes, Institut Fédératif de Recherche Broca Sainte Anne, 2ter rue dAlésia, 75014 Paris, France. E-mail: epelbaum{at}broca.inserm.fr.
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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The mechanisms mediating the sex difference in GH secretory dynamics remain unclear. SRIH and GHRH may interact not only at the pituitary level but also within the hypothalamus, in particular in the arcuate nucleus (Arc), which contains most of the GHRH cell bodies. Several sex-related differences in GHRH neurons have been reported, all pointing to higher activity in male than in female (8, 9, 10, 11, 12). Sexual dimorphism of GH secretion may also be due to sex-related differences in the somatostatinergic inputs on the GHRH neurons or in the pattern of responses to GHRH (13). Indeed, SRIH immunoneutralization induced an increase of GHRH levels in portal blood vessels (14), supporting the notion that SRIH neurons may directly influence GHRH neurons. Moreover, in the adult Rat, somatostatin receptor subtypes sst1 and sst2 are expressed in subsets of GHRH neurons (15, 16, 17). So far, a marked sex-related difference in the Arc was only reported in the case of sst1 expression (18).
In the present work, we took advantage of a GHRH-enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) transgenic mouse model (19) to assess sst2A immunolabeling distribution on GHRH-eGFP neurons, as well as sst2 and neurohormonal (GHRH and SRIH) expression in the hypothalamus. sst2A receptor distribution on GHRH-eGFP neurons was found to differ between male and female mice.
| Materials and Methods |
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All animal procedures complied with French laws regarding animal experimentation (Decree 87-848 of October 19, 1987 and the Ministerial Decree of April 19, 1988).
Immunohistochemistry
An antimouse GHRH was raised in rabbit against the 25-amino-acid C-terminal part of the mouse GHRH sequence in which the 17-Tyr moiety was replaced by a Cys to allow conjugation to keyhole limpet hemocyanin as carrier. This antiserum (L0851) did not cross-react with rat GHRH, human GHRH, SRIH, TRH, or cortistatin when tested in RIAs. Preincubation with immunogen completely abolished binding and immunocytochemical labeling.
To study colocalization between anti-GHRH antibody and eGFP-labeled neurons, mice were anesthetized with diazepam (100 µg/30 g body weight, ip; Valium; Roche Products, Meylan, France) and slowly injected with colchicine (50 µg in 1 µl 0.9% NaCl; Sigma, Saint Quentin Fallavier, France) intraventricularly (0.007 µl/min). Stereotaxic coordinates for the lateral ventricle were chosen according to the atlas of Franklin and Paxinos (20): 0.07 mm posterior, 0.10 mm lateral, and 0.21 mm deep from bregma. Forty-eight hours later, animals were killed and processed for immunocytochemistry. Briefly, adult male and female mice were anesthetized with ketamine (4 mg/30 g body weight, ip; Sanofi, Libourne, France) and perfused through the aorta with 4% paraformaldehyde in 0.1 M Na/K phosphate buffer (pH 7.4). Brains were cryoprotected by overnight immersion in a 30% sucrose solution, frozen in liquid isopentane (40 C), and kept at 80 C until use. Sectioning was performed using a cryostat at 30-µm thickness. Slices were then collected in Tris-buffered saline (TBS) and processed for immunocytochemistry on free-floating sections. Incubations were done in TBS (pH 7.4) at room temperature. After blocking in 5% normal goat serum, one of three sections was incubated overnight in TBS containing 0.3% Triton X-100 and 0.5% normal goat serum with the antimouse GHRH (L0851; 1:3000). Sections were further incubated for 1 h in the presence of a goat antirabbit IgG coupled to cyanine 3 (Cy3) (1:2500; Jackson ImmunoResearch, West Grove, PA) in the same buffer, mounted on glass slides, and coverslipped with Vectashield (Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA). GHRH-eGFP neurons were counted under a fluorescent microscope (DMRA; Leica, Heidelberg, Germany) at x40 magnification, on consecutive sections, along the rostrocaudal axis. GHRH-eGFP cell surface (and sst2A immunolabeled area, see below) in the Arc were quantified using NIH Image J version 1.32 software (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/) at x40 and x20 magnifications, respectively.
sst2A receptors were immunolocalized in animals not treated with colchicine, using a fully characterized antiserum raised in rabbit against the C-terminal segment 330369 of the human protein (21) because it was not possible to obtain good sst2 staining in the Arc of colchicine-treated animals (Csaba Z., unpublished results). sst2A immunohistochemistry was performed on 30-µm sections rinsed in TBS, and preincubated for 30 min in 5% normal donkey serum (NDS) in TBS containing 0.3% Triton X-100. Sections were incubated overnight at room temperature in rabbit anti-sst2A receptor antibody (1:2000) in TBS containing 0.5% NDS and 0.3% Triton X-100. Sections were then rinsed in TBS and incubated for 45 min in biotinylated donkey antirabbit IgG (1:500) (Vector Laboratories) in TBS containing 0.5% NDS and 0.3% Triton X-100. Finally, sections were incubated for 30 min in streptavidin-Cy3 (1:4000) (Jackson ImmunoResearch) in TBS to reveal sst2A receptors, rinsed in TBS, and mounted as above.
Sections were examined by confocal microscopy using an SP2 Leica laser scanning microscope equipped with a Leica DMRA microscope and argon/krypton ion laser (488, 543, and 633 nm). GHRH-eGFP cell bodies were counted over a 10-µm depth and checked for sst2A receptor immunoreactivity. Images were acquired at a x40 magnification simultaneously for GFP and Cy3 and processed using the Leica software package.
Real-time PCR
Brains were quickly removed and placed in sterile PBS until dissection. Two hypothalamic fragments containing arcuate and periventricular areas were excised: a mediobasal one containing the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH)-Arc region and a more dorsal and anterior segment adjacent to the third ventricle comprising the periventricular nucleus (PeV) region (22). Hypothalamic fragments were immediately placed and disrupted in lysis buffer. RNAs were extracted with a silicium membrane method using an RNeasy Mini extraction kit (Qiagen, Courtaboeuf, France) and quantified by spectrophotometry (Spectronics, Rochester, NY). First-strand cDNA was prepared by reverse transcription using 0.5 µg hypothalamic samples in a 20 µl final reaction mixture containing 200 U of Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA), 0.167 µg random primer (dN6; Promega, Charbonnière, France), 12.5 nmol dNTP (Promega), and 20 U of RNAsin (Promega).
Real-time PCR was performed with an ABI Prism 7000 Sequence Detection System (Applera Corporation, Applied Biosystems, Courtaboeuf, France). Amplification reactions were performed in a 20 µl final volume using a Taqman Universal Master Mix reagent kit for SRIH, GHRH, and sst2 primers (Applied Biosystems). rRNA at 18S was used for standardization.
PCR was initiated after activation of the Amplitaq Gold enzyme (Applied Biosystems) in the reaction mixture by heating for 10 min at 95 C. All genes were amplified by a first denaturation step of 15 s at 95 C, followed by an annealing and amplification step of 1 min at 60 C for 40 cycles. Relative gene expression levels were calculated according to the comparative threshold cycle (CT) method that normalizes the copy number of target genes to that of an endogenous reference gene (23). Based on exponential amplification of the target and reference genes, the amount of amplified molecules at the CT values was given. Normalized target gene expression relative to 18S rRNA is obtained by calculating the difference in CT values, the relative change in target transcripts being computed as 2
CT.
Statistical analysis
Results were expressed as mean ± SEM. The data were analyzed by ANOVA, followed by Students least significant difference test (SAS Institute, Cary, NC).
| Results |
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| Discussion |
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The distribution of GHRH-eGFP neurons was originally described in the male (19), with labeled cells mainly in the Arc and a few positive neurons in more dorsomedial hypothalamic regions. Green fluorescent somata were also immunolabeled in colchicine-treated animals with an antiserum against mouse GHRH, raised in this laboratory and tested for its specificity (see Materials and Methods). The superimposition of eGFP fluorescence and GHRH immunoreactivity allowed us to use the former to count GHRH. Aldehyde fixation of brains for immunocytochemistry may reduce the ability to detect eGFP in neurons, and it is theoretically possible that those neurons that express GHRH to a lower level would not be visualized using eGFP fluorescence. However, available data in the literature, obtained by conventional microscopic methods, provided a lower estimate of the total number of immunolabeled GHRH neurons in C57BL/6J mice, with no significant differences between males and females (24). Results presented herein, obtained by accurate counting of eGFP neurons by confocal microscopy (stacks analyzed over 20 µm to check for neuronal integrity in the depth of the section), do confirm the lack of sex difference in GHRH neuron number.
In the adult male rat, about 30% of GHRH cells bear sst receptors (15), later identified in equal proportions as sst1 and sst2 (17), but the distribution of sst receptors was unknown in the mouse. However, in this species, sst2 is necessary for GH-negative feedback on Arc GHRH neurons (25). In the mouse, sst2 mRNA can be spliced in two isoforms, sst2A and sst2B, both expressed in the rat brain and pituitary, except in the Arc/ME complex in which no sst2B was detected, indicating that sst2A is the isoform associated with GHRH neurons (26). Using a specific sst2A antiserum (21), almost 80% of female and less than 30% of male GHRH-eGFP neurons bear sst2A on their somata. This difference is observed all along the rostrocaudal axis of Arc. In the mouse, there is also evidence for a dimorphic pattern of ultradian GH secretion (Bluet-Pajot, M. T., and I. C. A. F. Robinson, unpublished observation), although technical difficulties in chronic blood sampling in nonrestrained animals have limited the reports of direct evidence for this (6, 7).
In contrast with GHRH neurons expression of sst2 immunoreactivity, no significant difference between males and females could be found in mean levels of sst2, GHRH, and SRIH transcripts assayed by real-time PCR on VMH-Arc and PeV extracts, perhaps due to the variation within individual mice in each groups. Variations in hypothalamic SRIH and GHRH mRNA levels have been related to ultradian oscillations in GH secretory episodes in the male rat (27). In the mouse, Low et al. (7) recently reported that male SRIH mRNA levels, in the whole hypothalamus, were 2-fold those of female mice. Such results were obtained in 129/Sv x C57BL animals backcrossed over five generations. The absence of dimorphism reported in SRIH hypothalamic expression in the GHRH-eGFP transgenic strain herein is also observed for SRIH hypothalamic content in 3-month-old C57BL/6J animals (data not shown). In addition, Kuwahara et al. (24) reported no significant sex differences in the immunoreactivity of SRIH PeV neurons in C57BL/6J mice up to 1 yr of age, after which a major increase is observed.
In the adult rat, short-term exposure to estradiol demasculinizes the male pattern of spontaneous and GHRH-induced GH secretion, as well as the rate of somatic growth (28); conversely, testosterone or dihydrotestosterone administration to adult female rats leads to a male-like secretory pattern (29, 30). In view of the sex-dependent distribution of sst2A receptors on mice GHRH neurons, the effects of gonadal steroids on this distribution remain to be assessed in conjunction with GH secretory patterns.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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K.B., C.L., I.C.A.F.R., J.E., and A.F.-B. have nothing to declare.
First Published Online February 23, 2006
Abbreviations: Arc, Arcuate nucleus; CT, threshold cycle; Cy3, cyanine 3; eGFP, enhanced green fluorescent protein; ME, median eminence; NDS, normal donkey serum; PeV, periventricular nucleus; sst, somatostatin; TBS, Tris-buffered saline; VMH, ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus.
Received November 17, 2005.
Accepted for publication February 14, 2006.
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