Immunohistochemical Localization of NCAM at Neuromuscular Contacts in Rat Muscle-Rat Nerve Cocultures / 대한해부학회지

ABSTRACT

Neuromuscular junction formation is one of the hot research area for understanding synapse formation, and the contact and adhesion between muscle and neurons during this procedure is regarded as one of important steps for synaptogenesis. The changes of neuronal cell adhesion molecules during nerve-muscle contats has not been revealed yet. In this study, we isolated skeletal muscle cells and ventral spinal cord neurons from Sprague-Dawley rats and observed the contact areas with a transmission electron microscpe and studied the presence of NCAM at the contact sites by immunohistochemistry. The ventral spinal cord neuronal processes contact intimately with skeletal muscle cells, some of which were submerged into the muscle surface and had synaptic vesicles. NCAM was expressed on neuronal processes, only sialylated form were associated with acetylcholine receptor aggregates. These results confirmed the significance of adhesion in neuromuscular junction formation and NCAM may participate in this process by preventing the separation of 2 cells at the contact site.