Authors: Yi Fan Mengdi Liu Xin Wu Fang Wang Jianhua Ding Jianguo Chen Gang Hu
Publish Date: 2011/12/23
Volume: 218, Issue: 1, Pages: 39-50
Abstract
Aquaporin4 AQP4 the most abundant aquaporin in the brain is polarized at the glial endfeet facing perisynaptic areas AQP4 has been hypothesized to modulate water and potassium fluxes associated with neuronal activity in pathophysiological states However the role of AQP4 in astroglial signaling under physiological conditions is unclear Herein AQP4 knockout mice and wildtype littermates were tested in the Morris water maze MWM which allows for investigating the role of AQP4 in longterm learning and memory Compared with wildtype mice AQP4 knockout mice appeared actually to find the platform more easy but to forget more quickly in the MWM indicating that AQP4 knockout mice exhibited impaired memory consolidation in MWM Moreover the deficits of memory consolidations were associated with defects in thetaburst stimulationinduced longterm potentiation both in vivo and in vitro Furthermore AQP4 knockout mice were accompanied by a decrease in the incorporation of adultgenerated granule cells into spatial memory networks Taken together our findings indicate that AQP4 plays a modulatory role in memory consolidation Targeting glial AQP4 may be a new therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative disorders and related memory impairmentThis study was supported by the grants from the National Key Basic Research Program of China No 2011CB504103 the National Natural Science Foundation of China No 81030060 No 30973517 and No 81173032 and the key project of Natural Science Foundation of the Higher Education Institutions of Jiangsu Province No 11KJA310003
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