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.
Division of Molecular Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics, Department of Genome Sciences, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Hyogo, Japan.
Shogo
S
Matsuyama
Nobutaka
N
Doe
Naoki
N
Kurihara
Katsuyuki
K
Tanizawa
Shun'ichi
S
Kuroda
Hiroyuki
H
Iso
Masato
M
Horie
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