Rat nurr1 is prominently expressed in perirhinal cortex, and differentially induced in the hippocampal dentate gyrus by electroconvulsive vs. kindled seizures.

We isolated a rat orphan nuclear hormone receptor from a brain cortex cDNA library. The sequence of the cDNA insert was 2154 bp with an open reading frame of 1794 bp encoding a putative protein of 598 amino acids and predicted molecular mass of 65 kDa. The deduced amino acid sequence showed a strong homology to the mouse nurr1 and human NOT1 orphan nuclear hormone receptors of the NGFI-B/nur77/NAK1 gene subfamily. We refer to this rat clone as r-nurr1. Northern blot analysis showed that r-nurr1 mRNA was highly expressed in the brain and moderately in the lung as a 4.0 kb transcript. A smaller transcript of 2.5 kb was also detected in the testes. The level of r-nurr1 transcript in the heart, skeletal muscle, liver, kidney and spleen was marginal. In situ hybridization showed that r-nurr1 mRNA was constitutively expressed in various regions of the CNS, particularly in the deeper layers (IV to VI) of the perirhinal cortex and area 2 of parietal cortex. We further evaluated the modulation of r-nurr1 expression in CNS by an electroconvulsive seizure (ECS) and by an amgydala-kindled seizure. A single ECS administered via earclip electrodes induced a rapid and transient increase of r-nurr1 mRNA in the granule cells of the dentate gyrus, being significant at 15 min after the seizure, maximal approximately 1 h and back to baseline at 4 h. The amygdala kindled seizure revealed a less robust and restricted nurr-1 induction in the CNS, as only two of the four kindled animals showed a unilateral induction of nurr1 mRNA in the dentate gyrus. These results suggest that r-nurr1 is an immediate-early gene that is differentially induced by ECS vs. kindled seizures. In addition, as r-nurr1 is prominently expressed in the specific brain sites associated with memory acquisition and consolidation, it may play a role in memory processing.