title: The role of glial cells in influencing neurite extension by dorsal root ganglion cells.
abstract: When pretreated with pertussis toxin (PTX), the neurites of adult rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells in mixed cell cultures retract over a period of 2 h following the initial stimulus of removal from the cell culture incubator for brief periods of observation. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether this PTX-dependent response was specific to any one of the three subpopulations of DRG neurons. However, no neurite retraction response was observed in neuron-enriched populations of cells, or in cultures enriched in isolectin B4 (IB4)-positive neurons or in IB4-negative neurons. But, the addition of non-neuronal cells, and/or medium conditioned by non-neuronal cells, was sufficient to restore the PTX-dependent neurite retraction response, but only in large diameter IB4-negative neurons. In conclusion, we have identified a regulatory response, mediated by Gi/o-proteins, which prevents retraction of neurites in large diameter IB4-negative cells of adult rat DRG. The non-neuronal cells of adult rat DRG constitutively release factor/s that can stimulate neurite retraction of a subset of isolated DRG neurons, but this property of non-neuronal cells is only observed when the Gi/o-proteins of large diameter IB4-negative cells are inhibited.
authors.affiliation: School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Kai-Yu
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Yung H
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wise
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D015740:Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide / Q000378:metabolism; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned / Q000494:pharmacology; D005727:Ganglia, Spinal / Q000166:cytology*; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000378:metabolism; D037102:Lectins / Q000378:metabolism; D008280:Magnetics; D008297:Male; D016501:Neurites / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D009457:Neuroglia / Q000737:chemistry / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000145:classification / Q000166:cytology* / Q000187:drug effects; D037342:Pertussis Toxin / Q000494:pharmacology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020917:Receptor, trkA / Q000378:metabolism; D014404:Tubulin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D037102:Lectins; D014404:Tubulin; D037342:Pertussis Toxin; D020917:Receptor, trkA; D015740:Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide