Mackenzie A
J Comp Pathol. 1983 Apr;93(2):251-9. doi: 10.1016/0021-9975(83)90012-9.
Although little is known about its metabolism, glial fibrillary acidic (GFA) protein has become widely used as a cell-specific, species-non-specific antigenic marker for normal or pathologically altered astroglia. So far there have been few investigations on GFA protein in relation to scrapie and analogous spongiform encephalopathies although there has been a need for an unequivocal method for the discrimination of different types of glia in these diseases. In the present studies, a commercially available antiserum to GFA protein incorporated in a peroxidase-antiperoxidase procedure was applied to paraffin sections of brain and spinal cord from mice affected with scrapie, avirulent Semliki forest virus and cuprizone encephalopathy, and to tissues from healthy and scrapie-affected sheep. Excellent delineation of GFA protein was obtained in astroglial cell bodies and processes and in fibrils in the glia limitans and in perivascular and subependymal sites. The method was extremely sensitive and selective. A massive increase in GFA protein in scrapie-affected mice paralleled an increase in reactive astrocytes and facilitated the construction of astroglial lesion profiles for scrapie and the other encephalopathies. In sheep, abundant GFA protein occurred in both healthy and in scrapie-affected animals and in the tissues examined the differences were not conclusive.
尽管对胶质纤维酸性（GFA）蛋白的代谢了解甚少，但它已被广泛用作正常或病理改变的星形胶质细胞的细胞特异性、物种非特异性抗原标记物。到目前为止，关于GFA蛋白与羊瘙痒病及类似的海绵状脑病的研究很少，尽管在这些疾病中需要一种明确的方法来区分不同类型的胶质细胞。在本研究中，将一种市售的抗GFA蛋白抗血清用于过氧化物酶-抗过氧化物酶程序，应用于感染羊瘙痒病、无毒的Semliki森林病毒和铜离子诱导的脑病的小鼠的脑和脊髓石蜡切片，以及健康和感染羊瘙痒病的绵羊的组织。在星形胶质细胞体、突起以及胶质界膜、血管周围和室管膜下部位的纤维中，均能很好地显示GFA蛋白。该方法极其灵敏且具有选择性。感染羊瘙痒病的小鼠中GFA蛋白大量增加，与反应性星形胶质细胞的增加平行，有助于构建羊瘙痒病和其他脑病的星形胶质病变图谱。在绵羊中，健康和感染羊瘙痒病的动物体内均有大量GFA蛋白，在所检查的组织中，差异并不显著。
