Journal of Neuroscience, Vol 7, 2364-2372, Copyright © 1987 by Society for Neuroscience
The postnatal development of the dopamine-containing innervation of dorsal and ventral striatum: effects of the weaver gene
S Roffler-Tarlov and AM Graybiel
We report here that the pattern of loss of dopamine that occurs in the
brains of adult mice carrying the autosomal recessive weaver gene is the
consequence both of failed postnatal development of the dopamine-
containing mesostriatal innervation and of the disappearance of the early
forming dopamine-island system. For these studies, we compared the contents
of dopamine extracted from 3 divisions of the striatum, the caudoputamen,
nucleus accumbens, and olfactory tubercle, and from the midbrain of weaver
and control littermate pups. Catecholamines were extracted from tissues
dissected from serial brain slices and were separated and measured using
high-performance liquid chromatography followed by electrochemical
detection. The anatomical pattern formed by the catecholamine-containing
innervation of the developing striatum was studied in 8-, 11-, 20-d-old,
and 1.5-month-old weaver and control mice using tyrosine hydroxylase
immunohistochemistry. In weaver neonates (7- 8 d old), the
dopamine-containing innervation of the caudoputamen is characterized by
near-normal concentrations of dopamine and by a normal anatomical
arrangement of dopamine islands. Subsequently, however, the weaver disease
is expressed in the caudoputamen as a failure of the dopamine islands to
persist and of the dopamine-containing innervation of the matrix to develop
at a normal rate. Whereas the concentration of dopamine increases 4.4-fold
between days 7 and 33 in normal animals, it increases only 1.6-fold in the
weaver. In spite of the severe reduction of dopamine, the weaver's
caudoputamen grows to near-normal size (85%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250
WORDS)