Evaluation of selected medium spiny neuron (MSN) and interneuron markers in the striatum of PGC-1α −/− and R6/2 mice.

<p>Representative confocal images of coronal sections of the striatum stained with antibodies directed against Gad1 (A–B), Calb1 (C–D), Pvalb (E–F), and NPY (G–H) demonstrate that protein expression changes closely mirror those at the transcript level in PGC-1α ^+/+ and ^−/− and R6/2 and WT littermates. PGC-1α ^−/− mice exhibit no change in Gad1 expression (A′, arrowheads), while Calb1 (C′) and NPY (G′) expression was increased in cell bodies (arrowheads) and processes of PGC-1α ^−/− mice compared to ^+/+ mice (A,C,G). Pvalb was minimally expressed in PGC-1α ^−/− cell bodies (E′); however, some staining was still evident in processes (arrows). Notably, overall MSN and interneuron number did not appear to differ between PGC-1α ^+/+ and ^−/− mice. Expression of Gad1 (B′), Calb1 (D′), and NPY (H′) were reduced in R6/2 versus WT animals (B,D,H), while expression Pvalb remained unaltered (D–D′). Decreases in Gad1 and Calb1 appeared to reflect a loss of expressing cells as well as decreased expression in remaining cells (arrows), while decreases in NPY appeared solely to reflect a loss of expression within this cellular population (arrows) in the R6/2. Scale bar = 25 µm.