The expression and function of midkine in the vertebrate retina.

UNLABELLED: The functional role of midkine during development, following injury and in disease has been studied in a variety of tissues. In this review, we summarize what is known about midkine in the vertebrate retina, focusing largely on recent studies utilizing the zebrafish (Danio rerio) as an animal model. Zebrafish are a valuable animal model for studying the retina, due to its very rapid development and amazing ability for functional neuronal regeneration following neuronal cell death. The zebrafish genome harbours two midkine paralogues, midkine-a (mdka) and midkine-b (mdkb), which, during development, are expressed in nested patterns among different cell types. mdka is expressed in the retinal progenitors and mdkb is expressed in newly post-mitotic cells. Interestingly, studies of loss- and gain-of-function in zebrafish larvae indicate that midkine-a regulates cell cycle kinetics. Moreover, both mdka and mdkb are expressed in different cell types in the normal adult zebrafish retina, but after light-induced death of photoreceptors, both are up-regulated and expressed in proliferating Müller glia and photoreceptor progenitors, suggesting an important and (perhaps) coincident role for these cytokines during stem cell-based neuronal regeneration. Based on its known role in other tissues and the expression and function of the midkine paralogues in the zebrafish retina, we propose that midkine has an important functional role both during development and regeneration in the retina. Further studies are needed to understand this role and the mechanisms that underlie it. LINKED ARTICLES: This article is part of a themed section on Midkine. To view the other articles in this section visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bph.2014.171.issue-4.

Midkine regulates amphetamine-induced astrocytosis in striatum but has no effects on amphetamine-induced striatal dopaminergic denervation and addictive effects: functional differences between pleiotrophin and midkine.

Midkine (MK), a neurotrophic factor with important roles in survival and differentiation of dopaminergic neurons, is upregulated in different brain areas after administration of different drugs of abuse suggesting MK could modulate drugs of abuse-induced pharmacological or neuroadaptative effects. To test this hypothesis, we have studied the effects of amphetamine administration in MK genetically deficient (MK-/-) and wild-type (MK+/+) mice. In conditioning studies, we found that amphetamine induces conditioned place preference (CPP) similarly in both MK-/- and MK+/+ mice. In immunohistochemistry studies, we found that amphetamine (10 mg/kg, four times, every 2 h) causes a similar striatal dopaminergic denervation in both MK-/- and MK+/+ mice. However, we detected a significant increase of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-positive cells in the striatum of amphetamine-treated MK-/- mice compared to MK+/+ mice, suggesting an enhanced amphetamine-induced astrocytosis in absence of endogenous MK. Interestingly, the levels of expression of the MK receptor, receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) ß/ζ, in the striatum were not found to be changed by the drug administration or the mouse genotype. In a similar manner the phosphorylation levels of RPTP ß/ζ substrates with important roles in survival of dopaminergic neurons, Fyn kinase and TrkA, and of the MAP kinases ERK1/2, were unaffected by the drug or the genotype. The data clearly suggest that endogenous MK limits amphetamine-induced astrocytosis through Fyn-, TrkA- and ERK1/2-independent mechanisms and identify previously unexpected functional differences between MK and pleiotrophin, the only other member of the MK family of growth factors, in the modulation of effects of drugs of abuse.

Genetic inactivation of pleiotrophin triggers amphetamine-induced cell loss in the substantia nigra and enhances amphetamine neurotoxicity in the striatum.

Pleiotrophin (PTN) is a neurotrophic factor with important effects in survival and differentiation of dopaminergic neurons that has been suggested to play important roles in drug of abuse-induced neurotoxicity. To test this hypothesis, we have studied the effects of amphetamine (10 mg/kg, four times, every 2 h) on the nigrostriatal pathway of PTN genetically deficient (PTN-/-) mice. We found that amphetamine causes a significantly enhanced loss of dopaminergic terminals in the striatum of PTN-/- mice compared to wild type (WT+/+) mice. In addition, we found a significant decrease ( approximately 20%) of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive neurons only in the substantia nigra of amphetamine-treated PTN-/- mice, whereas this area of WT+/+ animals remained unaffected after amphetamine treatment. This effect was accompanied by enhanced amphetamine-induced astrocytosis in the substantia nigra of PTN-/- mice. Interestingly, we found a significant decrease in the phosphorylation levels of p42 extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK2) in both saline- and amphetamine-treated PTN-/- mice, whereas phosphorylation of p44 ERK (ERK1) was almost abolished in the striatum of PTN-/- mice compared to WT+/+ mice, suggesting that basal deficiencies in the phosphorylation levels of ERK1/2 could underlie the higher vulnerability of PTN-/- mice to amphetamine-induced neurotoxic effects. The data suggest an important role of PTN in the protection of nigrostriatal pathways against amphetamine insult.