Expression of Aquaporin 4 in Astrocytes of Rats in Vitro / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the expression of aquaporin 4 (AQP4) in primary and secondary cultured rat astrocytes. Methods Rat cortical astrocytes from a newborn (one day) Wistar rat were cultured. Astrocytes were identified with immunofluorescence staining of glial fibrilillary acidic protein (GFAP). The expression of AQP4 was determined with real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immu-nofluorescence staining three, five, seven and nine days of primary culture, and nine days of secondary culture. Results The purity of GFAP-positive cells was more than 95％. The expression of AQP4 mRNA was found three days of primary culture, remained unchanged five days of primary culture (P>0.05), and increased seven and nine days of primary culture (P0.05). AQP4 immunofluorescence staining showed the same trend of AQP4 mRNA. Conclusion AQP4 may express since three days of primary culture in rat astrocytes in vitro, and increase slowly until nine days of primary culture.