Neurochemical Journal最新文献

Abstract—Characteristics of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) and sEVs composition are far from being well-studied for now, especially in the context of mental disorders. To elucidate the role of sEVs in disease we performed a quantitative analysis of the blood sEV in patients with focal epilepsy and patients with focal epilepsy with depression, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures with depression, pure depression, and bipolar affective disorder with the current depressive episode (cDE). Small EVs were isolated from the serum by gel filtration or PEG precipitation, and both methods showed very similar results. Subsequently, we precipitated neuronal sEVs and quantified it with several methods. Activity of lysosomal enzymes was determined in the sEVs fraction. The concentration of the blood sEVs in patients with depression, focal epilepsy, or depression with focal epilepsy was higher than in healthy controls. No difference was found between patients and controls in terms of neuronal sEVs concentration. Another finding of our study is that sEVs in the serum of patients contains various lysosomal enzymes. We suppose that the concentration of the blood sEVs in patients with depression or epilepsy is higher due to the sEVs secretion by the immune cells. Finding sEVs in the blood of patients with depression and focal epilepsy grants validity for future attempts to use sEVs as diagnostic tools for these disorders.

Abstract—Nerve growth factor (NGF) is a factor which determines neuronal differentiation. NGF plays an important role in growth and differentiation of sensory and sympathetic neurons in the peripheral nervous system. In the mature brain, NGF is involved in the maintenance of the cholinergic neuronal phenotype. Here, we studied a possibility to induce the cholinergic phenotype in mouse neuroblastoma cells, which are often used to model various physiological and pathological processes occurring in the nervous system. Cells of NB41A3 and Neuro2a neuroblastoma lines are most frequently used to study the properties of cholinergic neurons. In the cells of these lines, the expression of TrkA and p75NGFR receptors, which is specific for the forebrain cholinergic nuclei, was revealed. Differentiation of the cells was induced by application of NGF or 8-Br-cAMP. NGF did not induce neuronal differentiation. Moreover, we did not find any changes in the content of choline acetyltransferase and vesicular acetylcholine transporter mRNA and protein, which were used as markers of the cholinergic phenotype. Thus, NB41A3 and Neuro2a cell lines cannot be advised as a model of cholinergic neurons in vitro because they do not differentiate and/or exhibit signs of the cholinergic phenotype in response to NGF stimulation.

Abstract—Polyneuropathies are a heterogeneous group of immune-mediated diseases, among which Guillain–Barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy are the most frequent. On the contrary, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is most often considered as a disease, whose development is practically not associated with changes in the function of the immune system. This review summarizes the latest data on changes in the T-lymphocyte subpopulations and their function in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid in the aforementioned diseases. These data suggest that regulatory T cells and NKT cells may play an important role in the development of the discussed pathologies. We stress the necessity of accumulation and analysis of data on T-cell subpopulations, as well as the sequence of T-cell receptors, HLA, and CD1 in patients for the development of approaches to the diagnosis and possible therapy of these diseases.