Volume 16, Number 12,
Issue of June 15, 1996
pp. 4005-4016
Copyright ©1996 Society for Neuroscience
Analysis of the Globose Basal Cell Compartment in Rat Olfactory
Epithelium Using GBC-1, a New Monoclonal Antibody against Globose Basal
Cells
Received Dec. 1, 1995; revised March 21, 1996; accepted March 28, 1996.
Bradley J. Goldstein and
James E. Schwob
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Clinical Olfactory
Research Center, SUNY Health Science Center, Syracuse, New York
13210
The olfactory epithelium (OE) supports ongoing neurogenesis
throughout life and regenerates after experimental injury. Although
evidence indicates that proliferative cells within the population of
globose (light) basal cells (GBCs) give rise to new neurons, little is
known about the biology of GBCs. Because GBCs have been identifiable
only by an absence of staining with reagents that mark other cell types
in the epithelium, we undertook to isolate antibodies that specifically
react against GBCs and to characterize the GBC compartment in normal
and regenerating OE. Monoclonal antibodies were produced using mice
immunized with regenerating rat OE, and a monoclonal antibody
designated GBC-1, which reacts against GBCs of the rat OE, was
isolated. In immunohistochemical analyses, antibody GBC-1 was found to
label GBCs in both normal and regenerating OE as we are currently able
to define them: basal cells that incorporate the mitotic tracer
bromodeoxyuridine and fail to express cytokeratins or neural cell
adhesion molecule. During epithelial reconstitution after direct
experimental injury with methyl bromide, expression of the GBC-1
antigen overlaps to a limited extent with expression of cell-specific
markers for horizontal basal cells, Bowman's gland and sustentacular
cells, and neurons. These data suggest that GBC-1 may mark multipotent
cells residing in the GBC compartment, which are prominent during
regeneration. However, a limited number of cells in the regenerating OE
with other phenotypic characteristics of GBCs lack expression of the
GBC-1 antigen. GBC-1 has revealed novel aspects of GBC biology and will
be useful for studying the process of olfactory neurogenesis.
Key words:
stem cells;
sustentacular cells;
neurogenesis;
epithelial reconstitution;
differentiation-state marker;
olfactory bulb
ablation