Histochemical demonstration of mitochondrial dehydrogenases in developing normal and nervous mutant mouse Purkinje cells.

The mouse mutation nervous (nr), expressed as a recessive, causes a morphologic change in cerebellar Purkinje cell perikaryonal mitochondria during the 2nd postnatal week which is followed by the selective degeneration of most Purkinje cells. In the present study, mitochondrial dehydrogenase activities (succinic acid dehydrogenase, lactic acid dehydrogenase, malic acid dehydrogenase, reduced diphosphopyridine nucleotide diaphorase and succinic semialdehyde dehyrogenase) are found by light microscopy to be similar in the perikarya of normal and nervous Purkinje cells until after mitochondrial rounding has begun to occur, but then staining increases markedly in nervous. Although only a small fraction of mitochondrial functions were examined, those enzymes assayed were present and competent. In a sense, the only mitochondrial abnormalities demonstrated thus far in nervous Purkinje cells are their unusual shape and probable loss of motility.