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Aquaporin-4 promotes memory consolidation in Morris water maze

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Abstract

Aquaporin-4 (AQP4), the most abundant aquaporin in the brain, is polarized at the glial end-feet facing peri-synaptic areas. AQP4 has been hypothesized to modulate water and potassium fluxes associated with neuronal activity in pathophysiological states. However, the role of AQP4 in astroglial signaling under physiological conditions is unclear. Herein, AQP4 knockout mice and wild-type littermates were tested in the Morris water maze (MWM), which allows for investigating the role of AQP4 in long-term learning and memory. Compared with wild-type mice, AQP4 knockout mice appeared actually to find the platform more easy, but to forget more quickly, in the MWM, indicating that AQP4 knockout mice exhibited impaired memory consolidation in MWM. Moreover, the deficits of memory consolidations were associated with defects in theta-burst stimulation-induced long-term potentiation both in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, AQP4 knockout mice were accompanied by a decrease in the incorporation of adult-generated granule cells into spatial memory networks. Taken together, our findings indicate that AQP4 plays a modulatory role in memory consolidation. Targeting glial AQP4 may be a new therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative disorders and related memory impairment.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the grants from the National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB504103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81030060, No. 30973517 and No. 81173032,), and the key project of Natural Science Foundation of the Higher Education Institutions of Jiangsu Province (No. 11KJA310003).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Neurodegeneration, Department of Pharmacology, Nanjing Medical University, 140 Hanzhong Road, Nanjing, 210029, Jiangsu, China

    Yi Fan, Mengdi Liu, Jianhua Ding & Gang Hu

  2. Department of Pharmacology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, Hubei, China

    Xin Wu, Fang Wang & Jianguo Chen

Authors
  1. Yi Fan
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  2. Mengdi Liu
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  3. Xin Wu
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  4. Fang Wang
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  5. Jianhua Ding
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  6. Jianguo Chen
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  7. Gang Hu
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Correspondence to Gang Hu.

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Fan, Y., Liu, M., Wu, X. et al. Aquaporin-4 promotes memory consolidation in Morris water maze. Brain Struct Funct 218, 39–50 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-011-0373-2

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