Distribution of aromatase mRNA and protein in the brain and pituitary of female rainbow trout: Comparison with estrogen receptor alpha.

Recent data indicate that estrogens locally produced in the brain by aromatization of androgens could be important for neurogenesis and brain repair. In this respect, fish are interesting because of the extremely high aromatase activity of their brain. In this study, the rainbow trout brain aromatase was cloned and riboprobes were used to map the distribution of cells expressing the corresponding mRNAs. A very strong hybridization signal was detected in the pituitary and in cells bordering the ventricles in the telencephalon and ventral diencephalon, with the highest expression in the preoptic area and hypothalamus. A weaker signal was detected in the ependymal layer bordering the torus semicircularis and optic tectum. This localization was fully confirmed by immunohistochemistry using antibodies against a teleost aromatase. In addition, this antibody showed that aromatase expression in fact corresponds to radial glial cells because immunoreactive cells had long cytoplasmic processes extending toward the pial surface. Because brain aromatase was shown to be upregulated by estradiol in fish, the distribution of aromatase mRNAs was compared with that of rainbow trout estrogen receptor alpha (rtERalpha) on adjacent sections. Although the highest aromatase expression was found in regions expressing rtERalpha, no obvious coexpression was found, as rtERalpha was never observed in radial cells. However, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction experiments performed on brain cell cultures enriched in glial cells suggest that a weak expression of rtERalpha in glial cells cannot be excluded. The possible role of the high brain aromatase content in fish could be related to the continuous growth of their central nervous system during adulthood. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.