Expression of glial antigens C1 and M1 in developing and adult neurologically mutant mice.

The distribution of two glial antigens (C1 and M1) has been studied by indirect immunofluorescence during postnatal development of the cerebella of normal and neurologically mutant mice (weaver, staggerer, reeler, Purkinje cell degeneration, and wobbler). During the first postnatal week of normal development, C1 antigen is expressed in ependyma. Bergmann glial fibers (BG), and astrocytes of the internal granular layer and white matter. After day 10, C1 antigen is restricted to BG and ependymal cells. During the second and third week. BG undergo a transient loss of C1 antigen that starts in medioventral areas and spreads in a gradient dorsally and laterally. In reeler, weaver, and staggerer, C1 antigen expression is normal during the first postnatal week, and subsides in BG in a similar spatial gradient as described for the normal littermates. However, the loss of C1 antigen in BG occurs earlier (first in reeler, then in weaver, and last in staggerer) and is not reversible as it is in normal mice. In Purkinje cell degeneration, C1 antigen expression is diminished in BG after the onset of behavioral abnormalities. Wobbler is normal with respect to C1 antigen expression at adult ages. M1 antigen is detectable in white matter astrocytes from postnatal day 7 on, and persists in these cells into adulthood. Astrocytes if the internal granular layer and BG express M1 antigen only transiently in normal mice during the second and third weeks. The appearance of M1 antigen in BG occurs in a spatiotemporal gradient, matching the one in which C1 antigen disappears. M1 antigen expression is abnormally maintained in BG of reeler, staggerer, and weaver. In Purkinje cell degeneration. M1 antigen is expressed abnormally at the onset of behavioral abnormalities first in astrocytes of the internal granular layer and, with growing age, increasingly also in BG. In wobbler, BG do not express M1 antigen. However, astrocytes of the granular layer are abnormally M1 antigen-positive.