OBJECTIVE Oxytocin (OXT) could facilitate preovulatory luteinizing hormone surge in animals and humans while brain OXT production depends on glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-associated astrocytic plasticity. Here, we examined if GFAP expressions in OXT-producing hypothalamic supraoptic nucleus (SON) correlate to special estrous stages. METHODS 38 adult female rats were classified into d...

The two major intermediate filament (IF) proteins of astrocytes are vimentin and GFAP. Early during development, radial glia and immature astrocytes express mainly vimentin. Towards the end of gestation, a switch occurs whereby vimentin is progressively replaced by GFAP in differentiated astroglial cells. The expression of vimentin and GFAP increased markedly after injury to CNS. GFAP has been ...

Introduction: Cell transplantation is one of the main strategies for spinal cord injury repair. As OECs of the olfactory mucosa can be obtained by simple biopsy in all individuals without affecting their smell sensation, OECs considered as a promising candidate for autologous transplantation in the nervous system injury, especially for spinal cord repair. Thereby in the current study OECs wer...

Periventricular germinal zones (GZs) of developing and adult brain contain neural stem cells (NSCs), the cellular identities and origins of which are not defined completely. We used tissue culture techniques and transgenic mice expressing herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-TK) from the mouse glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) promoter to test the hypothesis that certain NSCs express G...

PURPOSE To characterize the reactions of retinal glial cells (astrocytes and Müller cells) to retinal injury in mice that lack glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and vimentin (GFAP-/-Vim-/-) and to determine the role of glial cells in retinal detachment (RD)-induced photoreceptor degeneration. METHODS RD was induced by subretinal injection of sodium hyaluronate in adult wild-type (WT) and...

Genus and Species. Sus scrofa. Locus. Pig glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) gene. Source and Description of Primers. The cDNA sequence of the human GFAP gene (GenBank accession no. J04569) was aligned to the mouse GFAP gene (GenBank accession no. X02801). Well-conserved sequence regions corresponding to exon 5 and exon 6 of the mouse GFAP gene were selected for PCR primers designed using t...

Rosenthal fibers (RFs) are cytoplasmic, proteinaceous aggregates. They are the pathognomonic feature of the astrocyte pathology in Alexander Disease (AxD), a neurodegenerative disorder caused by heterozygous mutations in the GFAP gene, encoding glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Although RFs have been known for many years their origin and significance remain elusive issues. We have used mo...

Reactive astrocytosis is a process by which astrocytes respond to brain injury by showing an increase in glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) staining that is associated with hypertrophy and/or hyperplasia of these cells. Because spreading depression (SD) is a perturbation uncomplicated by neuronal necrosis and is seen in both in vivo and in vitro neural structures, we sought to determine whe...

Gliosis is a biological process that occurs during injury repair in the central nervous system (CNS) and is characterized by the overexpression of intermediate filaments (IFs) glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and vimentin. A common thread in many retinal diseases is reactive Müller cell gliosis, an untreatable condition that leads to tissue scarring and even blindness. Here, we demonstrat...