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Differential expression of VGLUT1 or VGLUT2 in the trigeminothalamic or trigeminocerebellar projection neurons in the rat

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Abstract

The vesicular glutamate transporters, VGLUT1 and VGLUT2, reportedly display complementary distribution in the rat brain. However, co-expression of them in single neurons has been reported in some brain areas. We previously found co-expression of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 mRNAs in a number of single neurons in the principal sensory trigeminal nucleus (Vp) of the adult rat; the majority of these neurons sent their axons to the thalamic regions around the posteromedial ventral nucleus (VPM) and the posterior nuclei (Po). It is well known that trigeminothalamic (T-T) projection fibers arise not only from the Vp but also from the spinal trigeminal nucleus (Vsp), and that trigeminocerebellar (T-C) projection fibers take their origins from both of the Vp and Vsp. Thus, in the present study, we examined the expression of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 in Vp and Vsp neurons that sent their axons to the VPM/Po regions or the cortical regions of the cerebellum. For this purpose, we combined fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) histochemistry with retrograde tract-tracing; immunofluorescence histochemistry was also combined with anterograde tract-tracing. The results indicate that glutamatergic Vsp neurons sending their axons to the cerebellar cortical regions mainly express VGLUT1, whereas glutamatergic Vsp neurons sending their axons to the thalamic regions express VGLUT2. The present data, in combination with those of our previous study, indicate that glutamatergic Vp neurons projecting to the cerebellar cortical regions express mainly VGLUT1, whereas the majority of glutamatergic Vp neurons projecting to the thalamus co-express VGLUT1 and VGLUT2.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 81070900 to J.-L. Li), Key Subject of Traditional Chinese Medicine Scientific Research of Military (No.10 ZYZ35 to J.-L. Li), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (24500408, 23123510 to H. Hioki; 22300113, 23650175, 23115101 to T. Kaneko).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology and K.K. Leung Brain Research Centre, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, People’s Republic of China

    Shun-Nan Ge, Zhi-Hong Li, Jun Tang, Ting Zhang, Ya-Cheng Lu, Fu-Xing Zhang & Jin-Lian Li

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710038, People’s Republic of China

    Shun-Nan Ge, Zhi-Hong Li & Guo-Dong Gao

  3. Department of Anesthesiology, School of Stomatology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, People’s Republic of China

    Jun Tang

  4. Department of Morphological Brain Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Yunfei Ma, Hiroyuki Hioki, Noboru Mizuno, Takeshi Kaneko & Mandy Siu Yu Lung

  5. Institute of Neurosciences, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, People’s Republic of China

    Ying-Ying Liu

  6. Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Yunfei Ma

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  1. Shun-Nan Ge
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  2. Zhi-Hong Li
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  3. Jun Tang
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  4. Yunfei Ma
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  5. Hiroyuki Hioki
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  6. Ting Zhang
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  7. Ya-Cheng Lu
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  8. Fu-Xing Zhang
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  9. Noboru Mizuno
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  10. Takeshi Kaneko
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  11. Ying-Ying Liu
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  12. Mandy Siu Yu Lung
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  13. Guo-Dong Gao
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  14. Jin-Lian Li
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Correspondence to Guo-Dong Gao or Jin-Lian Li.

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S.-N. Ge, Z.-H. Li and J. Tang contributed equally to this work.

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Ge, SN., Li, ZH., Tang, J. et al. Differential expression of VGLUT1 or VGLUT2 in the trigeminothalamic or trigeminocerebellar projection neurons in the rat. Brain Struct Funct 219, 211–229 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-012-0495-1

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