RESUMEN
Incubation of rat brain homogenates with thiamine or thiamine diphosphate (TDP) leads to a synthesis of thiamine triphosphate (TTP). In membrane vesicles subsequently prepared from the homogenates, increased TTP content correlates with increased 36Cl- uptake. A hyperbolic relationship was obtained with a K0.5 of 0.27 nmol TTP/mg protein. In crude mitochondrial fractions from the brains of animals previously treated with thiamine or sulbutiamine, a positive correlation between 36Cl- uptake and TTP content was found. These results, together with other results previously obtained with the patch-clamp technique, suggest that TTP is an activator of chloride channels having a large unit conductance.
Asunto(s)
Química Encefálica/fisiología , Canales de Cloruro/metabolismo , Tiamina Trifosfato/metabolismo , Animales , Permeabilidad de la Membrana Celular/fisiología , Cloro , Cromatografía Líquida de Alta Presión , Técnicas In Vitro , Fosforilación , Psicotrópicos/farmacología , Radioisótopos , Ratas , Tiamina/análogos & derivados , Tiamina/farmacologíaRESUMEN
We previously demonstrated that testosterone (T) increases aromatase activity (AA) and that AA is sexually dimorphic (males > females) in the quail preoptic area (POA). The precise anatomical localization of these effects is, however, impossible to obtain by biochemical assays even when samples are dissected by the Palkovits punch technique. We were recently able to set up an immunocytochemical (ICC) procedure that permits visualization of aromatase-immunoreactive (ARO-ir) cells in the quail brain. This showed that the ARO-ir cells of the quail POA actually outline the sexually dimorphic medial preoptic nucleus (POM). This ICC technique was used here to analyze the sex dimorphism of the quail preoptic aromatase and the localization of T effects on ARO-ir cells. In Experiment 1, the number of ARO-ir cells was counted in one section every 100 microns throughout the rostral to caudal extent of the POM of castrated birds that had been treated with increasing doses of T (5, 10, or 20 mm long Silastic implants). These T-treatments produced a dose-related increase in the sexual behavior of the birds and they increased the number of ARO-ir cells in POM, in the septal regions, and in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). The effect had a particularly large amplitude in the part of the POM located under the anterior commissure (AC). In Experiment 2, the same procedure was used to reanalyze the sex difference of the preoptic aromatase system. This showed that the POM of adult males contains more stained cells than the POM of females but only in a restricted region located just under and rostral to the AC. No significant sex difference was observed in the septum or in the BNST. In Experiment 3, the number of ARO-ir cells was determined in the POM of males and females that had been gonadectomized and treated with a same dose of T (40 mm implants). No sex difference in the number of ARO-ir cells could be detected in these conditions. This suggests that the sex difference in AA that had been previously observed in T-treated birds results either from a difference in aromatase concentration or activity in a similar number of positive cells or from a difference in the number of ARO-ir cells that is very discrete from the anatomical point of view.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Asunto(s)
Aromatasa/fisiología , Área Preóptica/fisiología , Tabique Pelúcido/fisiología , Conducta Sexual Animal/fisiología , Testosterona/fisiología , Animales , Mapeo Encefálico , Copulación/fisiología , Coturnix , Femenino , Masculino , Neuronas/fisiología , Diferenciación Sexual/fisiología , Maduración Sexual/fisiologíaRESUMEN
The injection before Day 12 of incubation of estradiol benzoate (EB) into Japanese quail eggs produces a complete behavioral demasculinization of adult males that will hatch from these eggs. These males never show copulatory behavior even after administration of high levels of exogenous testosterone (T). It is usually assumed that such a demasculinization normally takes place in female embryos under the influence of endogenous estrogens but few experimental data are available to confirm the validity of this model. A series of four experiments was performed during which R76713, a triazole derivative that specifically inhibits aromatase (estrogen synthetase) activity, was injected into quail eggs at different stages of incubation to prevent the production of endogenous estrogens. The consequences of these embryonic treatments on the T-activated sexual behavior in adults were then quantified. When injected before Day 12 of incubation, R76713 completely blocked the behavioral demasculinization of females without affecting the behavior of the males. After a treatment with T, almost all R76713-treated females showed as adults a masculine copulatory behavior that was undistinguishable from the behavior of intact males. This effect was fully reversed by the injection in egg of EB demonstrating that the effects of R76713 were specifically due to the suppression of endogenous estrogens. Injection of R76713 during the late phase of the incubation (Day 12 or Day 15) only maintained weak copulatory behavior in females which confirmed that the behavioral demasculinization in quail takes place mainly though not exclusively during the early stages of ontogeny. In a last experiment, we combined an early R76713 treatment with an injection of EB either on Day 9 or on Day 14 of incubation. This showed that the sensitivity to differentiating effects of estrogens varies with age in a sexually differentiated manner. The EB injection on Day 9 demasculinized both male and female embryos. If this injection was delayed until Day 14, it was no longer effective in males but still caused a partial demasculinization of females. This demonstrates that even if females are not yet behaviorally demasculinized on Day 9 of incubation (suppression of aromatase activity at that age will maintain the behavior), their sensitivity to estrogens is already different from that of males.