Brain-derived neurotrophic factor but not neurotrophin-3 enhances differentiation of somatostatin neurons in hypothalamic cultures.

The present work investigated whether neurotrophins could differentially affect in vitro growth and maturation of two related subsets of hypothalamic neurons, hypophysiotropic somatostatin (SRIH) neurons projecting from the periventricular area and arcuate SRIH interneurons. For this purpose, the hypothalamus of 17-day-old rat fetuses was sampled and separated into a ventral and a dorsal fragment containing respectively periventricular and arcuate regions. Each fragment was dissociated and seeded separately in defined medium. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) or neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), two important members of the neurotrophin family involved in neuronal differentiation and plasticity, were added to the cultures at seeding time. After 6 or 11 days in vitro, neurons were labeled with an anti-SRIH antiserum and submitted to morphometric analysis. In parallel, SRIH mRNA was estimated by semiquantitative reverse-transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, and neuronal SRIH content, basal and depolarisation-stimulated releases measured by radioimmunoassay. The response of control, non-labeled neurons was estimated by neuronal counts and by assaying glutamic acid decarboxylase, a marker of a large majority of hypothalamic neurons. BDNF markedly increased the size and the branching number of SRIH periventricular cell bodies. Expression of SRIH mRNA, as well as SRIH content and release into the culture medium, were also stimulated by the neurotrophin. Non-SRIH neurons were not affected by the treatment. Under the same conditions, arcuate neurons exhibited a weak, mostly transient response to BDNF. NT-3 was ineffective on either neuronal subset. Immunoneutralization of Trk receptors provided further evidence for BDNF effect specificity. The results indicate that BDNF is a selective activator of the differentiation of hypophysiotropic SRIH neurons in the periventricular area of the hypothalamus. Copyright 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.