Testosterone and estrogen affect neuronal differentiation but not proliferation in early embryonic cortex of the rat: the possible roles of androgen and estrogen receptors

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• 作者：Zhang ; Lei ; Chang ; Yoong H. ; Barker ; Jeffery L. ; Hu ; Qian ; Zhang ; Li ; Maric ; Dragan ; Li ; Bing-Sheng ; et. al.
• 关键词：Testosterone ; Estrogen ; Sexual dimorphism ; Cortex ; Differentiation ; Proliferation
• 刊名：Neuroscience Letters
• 出版年：2000
• 出版时间：March 3, 2000
• 年：2000
• 卷：281
• 期：1
• 页码：57-60
• 全文大小：344 K

文摘

We examined the effect of testosterone (T) and 17 beta-estradiol (E) on differentiation and proliferation of cultured neurons from the cortex of 14-day-rat embryos (E14) using immunocytochemistry. We found that the cultures receiving E had significantly more neurons with longer neurites than the control cultures, while both fewer and less differentiated neurons were seen after 24 h of incubation with T. However, neither T nor E changed the number of cells positive for BrdU, a proliferation marker. We also found that the androgen receptor (AR) was markedly expressed in the neurons, whereas the expression of estrogen (ER_α) receptor was barely detectable. These results suggest that E and T differ in effect on differentiation, while neither affect proliferation in early developmental cortex. Furthermore, since the AR is expressed in the cortical neurons by E14, the inhibitory effect of T on differentiation may be receptor-mediated, while the stimulatory effects of estrogen in the cortex do not appear to involve nuclear ER_α at this developmental stage.