Cerebellar hypoplasia in the Gunn rat with hereditary hyperbilirubinemia: immunohistochemical and neurochemical studies.

Immunohistochemical reactions were conducted, using the antibodies against GFA and S-100 proteins on sections of cerebellum from the homozygous (jj) and the heterozygous (Jj) Gunn rats. Hypertrophy of the fibrous astrocytes was observed but hyperplasia of the glial cells was not. Although the molecular layer was very thin, the Bergmann fibre appeared normal. Among the free amino acids in the cerebellum from the jj rat, glutamate concentration decreased to two-thirds of the control level. The protein profile of the cerebellum from the jj rat obtained by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis revealed that the amount of P400 protein that is characteristic of Purkinje cells decreased considerably and there were also some changes of the other unidentified proteins. By two-dimensional electrophoresis, it was observed that in the supernatant from the jj rat cerebellum one protein spot diminished and in the particulate fraction from the jj rat one spot was enormously increased. The activity of 2',3'-cyclic nucleotide 3'-phosphohydrolase (CNPase) in the cerebellum from the jj rat did not differ significantly from that of the control; however, activities of choline acetyltransferase and acetylcholinesterase of the jj rat were about twice as high as those of the control. 2-Deoxyglucose incorporation was maximum in the granular layer from both the jj and the Jj rat cerebella. However, the incorporation in the jj cerebellum was not higher than in the Jj control and even lower in some parts of the jj cerebellum than in the control Jj cerebellum.