1. The roles of aquaporin-4 in brain edema following neonatal hypoxia ischemia and reoxygenation in a cultured rat astrocyte model
- Author
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Zhi-chun Feng, De-zhi Mu, Qiuping Li, and Xue-mei Fu
- Subjects
Cell Membrane Permeability ,Ischemia ,Down-Regulation ,Brain Edema ,Biology ,Rats, Sprague-Dawley ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,Western blot ,Edema ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Cells, Cultured ,Cell Size ,Aquaporin 4 ,Asphyxia Neonatorum ,Gene knockdown ,Messenger RNA ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Infant, Newborn ,Brain ,Transfection ,Water-Electrolyte Balance ,medicine.disease ,Molecular biology ,Rats ,Disease Models, Animal ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Animals, Newborn ,Gene Expression Regulation ,Neurology ,Astrocytes ,Reperfusion Injury ,Hypoxia-Ischemia, Brain ,RNA Interference ,sense organs ,medicine.symptom ,Neuroscience ,Astrocyte - Abstract
Aquaporin-4 (AQP4), a water channel protein, is abundantly expressed in astrocytes and plays a key role in the development of brain edema. However, it is not clear whether AQP4 contributes to astrocytic swelling in hypoxia-ischemia (HI). To investigate the roles of AQP4 in astrocytic swelling during HI and reoxygenation, we measured AQP4 expression and astrocytic cellular volume in cultured rat astrocytes following HI and reoxygenation. RNA interference was used to knockdown AQP4 expression (AQP4(-/-)). Real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis were used to detect the inhibitory efficiency of AQP4. We found that the maximal inhibition of AQP4 mRNA and protein in astrocytes after AQP4 siRNA transfection (AQP4(-/-)) was approximately 77 and 85%, respectively, compared to wild-type AQP4 (AQP4(+/+)) expression. Cellular volume in both AQP4(-/-) and AQP4(+/+) astrocytes was significantly increased during HI compared to cells cultured in normoxia (P
- Published
- 2007