Journal de protéomique et bioinformatique
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Differential Proteomics of the Cerebral Cortex of Juvenile, Adult and Aged Rats: An Ontogenetic Study

Michael Wille, Antje Schümann, Michael Kreutzer, Michael O Glocker, Andreas Wree, Grit Mutzbauer and Oliver Schmitt

The identification of up- and downregulated as well as absent proteins in the central nervous system is necessary to understand the interplay of migration, differentiation and integration of neuronal progenitor cells at different stages of development. In a first step, differentially expressed proteins of the cerebral cortex of the laboratory rat at three significant stages of development were identified. The cerebral cortex needs differential abundances of proteins during ontogenesis and uses its high plasticity postnatally to adapt to many types of intrinsic and extrinsic changes. This study focuses on the identification of specific proteins which are differentially expressed during postnatal development. Cerebral cortices of P7, P90 and P637 old wistar rats were dissected and analyzed by twodimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2DE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) analysis. The identified and differentially expressed proteins are subdivided into 13 different classes. Proteins of the functional classes of the carbohydrate metabolism, structural and regulatory proteins as well as proteins involved in the energy metabolism show the highest differential abundance within the analyzed stages of development. Cytoskeleton proteins like neurofilaments and β-actin are downregulated in early development. In contrast, some proteins which are necessary for migration and motility are upregulated in P7 versus P90 animals. Furthermore, proteins for vesicular trafficking like drebrin and Gdi2 are upregulated in P7. In aged animals oxidative stress sensors, proteins necessary for autophagy of dysfunctional mitochondria, growth control and hypoxia tolerance (Ppp1ca, Eno1) turned out to be upregulated. Overall, energy consumption and differentiation processes as well as specific regulatory mechanisms can be observed at least indirectly by differential abundances of proteins during the investigated stages of ageing.