Astrocytes and extracellular matrix following intracerebral transplantation of embryonic ventral mesencephalon or lateral ganglionic eminence.

Transplantation of embryonic neurons to the adult mammalian central nervous system (CNS) offers the possibility of re-establishing neural functions lost after traumatic injuries or neurodegenerative disease. In the adult CNS, however, transplanted neurons and their growing neurites can become confined to the graft region, and there may also be a relative paucity of afferents innervating grafted neurons. Because glia may influence the development and regeneration of CNS neurons, the present study has characterized the distribution of astrocytes and developmentally regulated glycoconjugates (chondroitin-6-sulfate proteoglycan and tenascin) within regions of the embryonic mouse CNS used as donor tissues, and in and around these grafts to the adult striatum and substantia nigra. Both chondroitin-6-sulfate proteoglycan and tenascin are present in the embryonic ventral mesencephalon (in association with radial glia and their endfeet, and glial boundaries that cordon off the ventral mesencephalon dopamine neuron migratory zone) and lateral ganglionic eminence before transplantation, and they are conserved within grafts of these tissues to the adult mouse. Neostriatal grafts exhibit a heterogeneous pattern of astrocyte and extracellular matrix molecule distribution, unlike ventral mesencephalon grafts, which are rather homogeneous. There is evidence to suggest that, in addition to variation in astroglial/extracellular matrix immunostaining within different compartments in striatal grafts to either adult striatum or substantia nigra, there are also boundaries between these compartments that are rich in glial fibrillary acidic protein/extracellular matrix components. Substantia nigra grafts, with cells immunoreactive for tyrosine hydroxylase, are also rich in immature astroglia (RC-2-immunopositive), and as the astroglia mature (to glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive) over time the expression of chondroitin-6-sulfate proteoglycan and tenascin is also reduced. These same extracellular matrix constituents, however, are only slightly up-regulated in an area of the adult host which surrounds the grafted tissue. Glial scar components exhibit no obvious differences between grafts from different sources to homotopic (e.g., striatum to striatum) or heterotopic (e.g., substantia nigra to striatum) sites, and likewise grafts of non-synaptically associated structures (e.g., cerebellum to striatum), needle lesions or vehicle injections all yield astroglial/extracellular matrix scars in the host that are indistinguishable. Studies utilizing the ROSA-26 transgenic (beta-galactosidase-positive) mouse as a host for non-5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl-beta-d-galactopyranoside-labeled grafts indicate that the early astroglial/extracellular matrix response to the graft is derived from the surrounding host structures. Furthermore, biochemical analysis of one of the "boundary molecules", tenascin, from the developing ventral mesencephalon versus adult striatal lesions, suggests that different forms of the molecule predominate in the embryonic versus lesioned adult brain. Such differences in the nature and distribution of astroglia and developmentally regulated extracellular matrix molecules between donor and host regions may affect the growth and differentiation of transplanted neurons. The present study suggests that transplanted neurons and their processes may flourish within graft versus host regions, in part due to a confining glial scar, but also because the extracellular milieu within the graft site remains more representative of the developmental environment from which the donor neurons were obtained [Gates M. A., et al. (1994) Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 20, 471].