Research on the role of GLP-2 in the central nervous system EPK signal transduction pathway of mice with vascular dementia.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of Glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) in the central nervous system eukaryotic protein kinase (EPK) signal transduction pathway of mice with vascular dementia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We take the 3-week-old mice raised in the laboratory as the object of study in this research and then divide them into four groups in random, including sham operation group, control group, GLP-2 group, and GLP-2+ERK (extracellular-signal-regulated kinase) inhibitor intervention group, with 30 in each group. The step-down test, water-maze test, electron microscopy observation, immunohistochemical method, and Western-blotting are adopted to investigate the role of GLP-2 in the central nervous system EPK signal transduction pathway of mice with vascular dementia.

RESULTS: The step-down test, as well as the water-maze learning and memory test, shows that the mice injected with GLP-2 in the experiment group have their learning and memory ability improved significantly when compared with other three groups, which is greatly different from that of other three groups (p < 0.05); the electron microscopy observation shows that the injection of GLP can partially reverse the reduction of vesicles while ERK inhibitor removes the said protection; the immunohistochemical result and image analysis result show that the EPK expression quantity in GLP-2 group has no significant difference from that of other three groups (p > 0.05). However, the content of pi-EPK in the GLP-2 group is significantly higher than that in VD group and GLP-2+PD98095 group and is significantly different from them (p < 0.05), and such result is in line with the result of Western-blotting.

CONCLUSIONS: GLP can influence the change in hippocampus cells extensions and finally influence their cognitive function by activating the EPK signal transduction pathway of hippocampal neuron in the central nervous system.