Department of Biology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA circle, San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA.
Hippocampus. 2010 Aug;20(8):902-5. doi: 10.1002/hipo.20743.
Changes in brain cholesterol homeostasis are associated with multiple diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's; however, controversy persists as to whether adult neurons produce their own cholesterol, or if it is outsourced to astrocytes. To address this issue, we analyzed 25 genes most immediately involved in cholesterol homeostasis from in situ data provided by the Allen Brain Mouse Atlas. We compared the relative mRNA expression in the pyramidal and granule layers, populated with neurons, with the rest of the hippocampus which is populated with neuronal processes and glia. Comparing the expression of the individual genes to markers for neurons and astrocytes, we found that cholesterol homeostasis genes are preferentially targeted to neuronal layers. Therefore, changes in gene expression levels might affect neuronal populations directly.
大脑胆固醇稳态的变化与多种疾病有关，如阿尔茨海默病和亨廷顿病；然而，关于成年神经元是否产生自身胆固醇，或者是否外包给星形胶质细胞，仍存在争议。为了解决这个问题，我们分析了来自艾伦脑图谱提供的原位数据中与胆固醇稳态最直接相关的 25 个基因。我们比较了富含神经元的锥体和颗粒层与富含神经元突起和神经胶质的海马体其余部分的相对 mRNA 表达。将单个基因的表达与神经元和星形胶质细胞的标志物进行比较，我们发现胆固醇稳态基因优先靶向神经元层。因此，基因表达水平的变化可能会直接影响神经元群体。
