title: Region-Specific Differences in Amyloid Precursor Protein Expression in the Mouse Hippocampus.
abstract: The physiological role of amyloid precursor protein (APP) has been extensively investigated in the rodent hippocampus. Evidence suggests that APP plays a role in synaptic plasticity, dendritic and spine morphogenesis, neuroprotection and-at the behavioral level-hippocampus-dependent forms of learning and memory. Intriguingly, however, studies focusing on the role of APP in synaptic plasticity have reported diverging results and considerable differences in effect size between the dentate gyrus (DG) and area CA1 of the mouse hippocampus. We speculated that regional differences in APP expression could underlie these discrepancies and studied the expression of APP in both regions using immunostaining,in situhybridization (ISH), and laser microdissection (LMD) in combination with quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and western blotting. In sum, our results show that APP is approximately 1.7-fold higher expressed in pyramidal cells of Ammon's horn than in granule cells of the DG. This regional difference in APP expression may explain why loss-of-function approaches using APP-deficient mice revealed a role for APP in Hebbian plasticity in area CA1, whereas this could not be shown in the DG of the same APP mutants.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Del Turco
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Mandy H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schlaudraff
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-UniversityFrankfurt, Germany; Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology (IPMB), Heidelberg UniversityHeidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Meike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hick
authors.affiliation: Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Mainz Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Endres
authors.affiliation: Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology (IPMB), Heidelberg University Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulrike C
authors.initials: UC
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Neuroanatomy, Neuroscience Center, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deller
keywords: APP; CA1; RT-qPCR; dentate gyrus; immunostaining; in situ hybridization; laser microdissection; western blotting