scholarly journals Mice Lacking Connective Tissue Growth Factor in the Forebrain Exhibit Delayed Seizure Response, Reduced C-Fos Expression and Different Microglial Phenotype Following Acute PTZ Injection

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (14) ◽  
pp. 4921
Author(s):  
Pei-Fen Siow ◽  
Chih-Yu Tsao ◽  
Ho-Ching Chang ◽  
Chwen-Yu Chen ◽  
I-Shing Yu ◽  
...  

Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) plays important roles in the development and regeneration of the connective tissue, yet its function in the nervous system is still not clear. CTGF is expressed in some distinct regions of the brain, including the dorsal endopiriform nucleus (DEPN) which has been recognized as an epileptogenic zone. We generated a forebrain-specific Ctgf knockout (FbCtgf KO) mouse line in which the expression of Ctgf in the DEPN is eliminated. In this study, we adopted a pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizure model and found similar severity and latencies to death between FbCtgf KO and WT mice. Interestingly, there was a delay in the seizure reactions in the mutant mice. We further observed reduced c-fos expression subsequent to PTZ treatment in the KO mice, especially in the hippocampus. While the densities of astrocytes and microglia in the hippocampus were kept constant after acute PTZ treatment, microglial morphology was different between genotypes. Our present study demonstrated that in the FbCtgf KO mice, PTZ failed to increase neuronal activity and microglial response in the hippocampus. Our results suggested that inhibition of Ctgf function may have a therapeutic potential in preventing the pathophysiology of epilepsy.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahan Mamoor

Metastasis to the brain is a clinical problem in patients with breast cancer (1-3). We mined published microarray data (4, 5) to compare primary and metastatic tumor transcriptomes to discover genes associated with brain metastasis in patients with metastatic breast cancer. We found that the connective-tissue growth factor, encoded by CTGF, was among the genes whose expression was most different in the metastatic tumor tissues of patients with metastatic breast cancer, both in metastases to brain and to the lymph nodes when compared to primary tumors of the breast. Molecular functions and down-regulation of CTGF may be important for metastasis of primary tumor-derived cancer cells to the lymph nodes and to the brain in humans with metastatic breast cancer, and suggests some level of common origin for metastases that reside in the lymph nodes and colonize the brain.


Hepatology ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. NA-NA
Author(s):  
Ieva Peredniene ◽  
Eddy van de Leur ◽  
Birgit Lahme ◽  
Monika Siluschek ◽  
Axel M. Gressner ◽  
...  

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