Spatial learning of mice lacking a neuron-specific epidermal growth factor family protein, NELL2.
NELL2 is a neuron-specific thrombospondin-1-like extracellular protein containing six epidermal growth factor-like domains. We previously disrupted the NELL2 gene in mice by gene targeting and showed that long-term potentiation is enhanced in vivo in the dentate gyrus of NELL2-deficient mice. To further elucidate the physiological roles of NELL2, we performed a behavioral characterization of NELL2(-/-) and their heterozygous control mice. NELL2-deficient mice exhibited learning impairment in the Morris water maze task. However, we observed no difference in passive avoidance learning between NELL2(-/-) and NELL2(+/-) mice. These observations suggest that NELL2 plays an important role in hippocampus-dependent spatial learning and that emotional learning does not depend critically on NELL2.
Matsuyama
Shogo
S
Division of Molecular Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics, Department of Genome Sciences, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Hyogo, Japan.
Doe
Nobutaka
N
Kurihara
Naoki
N
Tanizawa
Katsuyuki
K
Kuroda
Shun'ichi
S
Iso
Hiroyuki
H
Horie
Masato
M
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009043:Motor Activity; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000502:physiology*
C491253:Nell2 protein, mouse; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins