Up-regulated BAFF and BAFF receptor expression in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy and a pilocarpine-induced epilepsy rat model.

PURPOSE: Some studies have suggested that BAFF and BAFFR are highly expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) and participate in inflammatory and immune associated diseases. However, whether BAFF and BAFFR are involved in the pathogenesis of epilepsy remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate the expression of BAFF and BAFFR proteins in the brains of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and in a pilocarpine-induced rat model of TLE to identify possible roles of the BAFF-BAFFR signaling pathway in epileptogenesis.

METHODS: Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), western blot, immunohistochemistry, and double-immunofluorescence were performed in this study.

RESULTS: The results showed that BAFF and BAFFR expression levels were markedly up-regulated in intractable TLE patients and TLE rats. Moreover, BAFF and BAFFR proteins mainly highly expressed in the membranes and cytoplasms of the dendritic marker MAP2 in the cortex and hippocampus.

CONCLUSION: Therefore, the significant increased in BAFF and BAFFR protein expression in both TLE patients and rats suggest that BAFF and BAFFR may play important roles in regulating the pathogenesis of epilepsy.