Johnson R J, Schemann M, Santer R M, Cowen T
Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London, UK.
J Anat. 1998 May;192 ( Pt 4)(Pt 4):479-88. doi: 10.1046/j.1469-7580.1998.19240479.x.
Previous studies on ageing animal and human subjects have demonstrated a significant overall decline in neuronal numbers in the myenteric plexus of the enteric nervous system (ENS). Our study aimed to confirm this observation by counting myenteric neurons stained with the panneuronal markers PGP 9.5 and NADH-diaphorase. We also wished to examine the possibility that particular subpopulations of neurons are vulnerable. Therefore, we have immunostained and counted a number of nerve cell groups within the myenteric plexus of old and young Sprague Dawley rats using markers which reflect some of the neuronal phenotypes present, including ChAT and VIP. The number of neurons demonstrating NADH-diaphorase activity was significantly reduced (P < 0.05) by approximately 15 % in old rats. However, the number of neurons stained for PGP 9.5 immunohistochemistry was not reduced and demonstrated larger numbers of neurons than the NADH-diaphorase method. None of the other neuronal markers studied showed any significant reductions with age. In contrast to previous work, this study has gathered little evidence for extensive cell loss in the myenteric plexus of the aged rat, either in overall populations, or in any of the principal functional groups of neurons.
先前针对衰老动物和人类受试者的研究表明，肠神经系统（ENS）肌间神经丛中的神经元数量总体上显著减少。我们的研究旨在通过计数用泛神经元标志物PGP 9.5和NADH-黄递酶染色的肌间神经元来证实这一观察结果。我们还希望研究特定神经元亚群易受影响的可能性。因此，我们使用反映一些现有神经元表型的标志物，包括ChAT和VIP，对老年和幼年Sprague Dawley大鼠肌间神经丛内的多个神经细胞群进行了免疫染色和计数。老年大鼠中显示NADH-黄递酶活性的神经元数量显著减少（P < 0.05），约减少15%。然而，PGP 9.5免疫组化染色的神经元数量没有减少，且显示出比NADH-黄递酶法更多的神经元。所研究的其他神经元标志物均未显示出随年龄有任何显著减少。与先前的研究不同，本研究几乎没有收集到证据表明老年大鼠肌间神经丛中存在广泛的细胞丢失，无论是在总体群体中，还是在任何主要的神经元功能组中。
