Liu Juanjuan, Gu Xiaozhen, Zou Rongxin, Nan Wenping, Yang Shaohua, Wang Hui-Li, Chen Xiang-Tao
School of Food Science and Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China.
School of Pharmacy, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
Front Pharmacol. 2018 Oct 9;9:1141. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.01141. eCollection 2018.
The abscisic acid (ABA) is a phytohormone involved in plant growth, development and environmental stress response. Recent study showed ABA can also be detected in other organisms, including mammals. And it has been reported that ABA can improve learning and memory in rats. In this study, we attempted to investigate the effects of ABA on the alternation of dendritic spine morphology of pyramidal neurons in developmental rats, which may underlie the learning and memory function. Behavior tests showed that ABA significantly improved spatial memory performance. Meanwhile, Golgi-Cox staining assay showed that ABA significantly increased the spine density and the percentage of mushroom-like spines in pyramidal neurons of hippocampus, indicating that ABA increased dendritic spine formation and maturation, which may contribute to the improvement of spatial memory. Furthermore, ABA administration increased the protein expression of NDR1/2 kinase, as well as mRNA levels of NDR2 and its substrate Rabin8. In addition, NDR1/2 shRNA prohibited the ABA-induced increases in the expression of NDR1/2 and spine density. Together, our study indicated that ABA could improve learning and memory in rats and the effect are possibly through the regulation of synaptogenesis, which is mediated via NDR1/2 kinase pathway.
脱落酸（ABA）是一种参与植物生长、发育和环境应激反应的植物激素。最近的研究表明，在包括哺乳动物在内的其他生物体中也能检测到ABA。并且有报道称ABA可以改善大鼠的学习和记忆能力。在本研究中，我们试图探究ABA对发育中大鼠锥体神经元树突棘形态变化的影响，这可能是学习和记忆功能的基础。行为测试表明，ABA显著改善了空间记忆表现。同时，高尔基-考克斯染色分析表明，ABA显著增加了海马锥体神经元的棘密度和蘑菇状棘的百分比，表明ABA增加了树突棘的形成和成熟，这可能有助于空间记忆的改善。此外，给予ABA增加了NDR1/2激酶的蛋白表达，以及NDR2及其底物Rabin8的mRNA水平。另外，NDR1/2 shRNA抑制了ABA诱导的NDR1/2表达增加和棘密度增加。总之，我们的研究表明，ABA可以改善大鼠的学习和记忆能力，其作用可能是通过调节突触形成，这是由NDR1/2激酶途径介导的。
