Abstract
There is strong evidence that a restricted part of the chick forebrain, the IMM (formerly IMHV), stores information acquired through the learning process of visual imprinting. Twenty-four hours after imprinting training, a learning-specific increase in amount of myristoylated, alanine-rich C-kinase substrate (MARCKS) protein is known to occur in the homogenate fraction of IMM. We investigated the two components of this fraction, membrane-bound and cytoplasmic-phosphorylated MARCKS. In IMM, amount of membrane-bound MARCKS, but not of cytoplasmic-phosphorylated MARCKS, increased as chicks learned. No changes were observed for either form of MARCKS in PPN, a control forebrain region. The results indicate that there is a learning-specific increase in membrane-bound, non-phosphorylated MARCKS 24 h after training. This increase might contribute to stabilization of synaptic morphology.
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Abbreviations
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- Df:
-
Degrees of freedom
- MARCKS:
-
Myristoylated alanine-rich C-kinase substrate
- m-MARCKS:
-
Membrane-associated MARCKS
- cp-MARCKS:
-
Cytoplasmic-phosphorylated MARCKS
- IMM:
-
Intermediate and medial mesopallium
- P :
-
Probability
- PKC:
-
Protein kinase C
- PPN:
-
Posterior pole of the nidopallium
- SEM:
-
Standard error of the mean
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the Royal Society and the BBSRC for financial support and to Drs. P. J. Blackshear and D. J. Stumpo, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Duke University, USA for the gift of anti-MARCKS antibody.
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Solomonia, R.O., Apkhazava, D., Nozadze, M. et al. Different forms of MARCKS protein are involved in memory formation in the learning process of imprinting. Exp Brain Res 188, 323–330 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1428-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1428-3