ABSTRACT (232 words)
Nerve/glial antigen 2 glial cells (NG2-glia) are a uniformly distributed pool of cells in the central nervous system. In addition, to serve as oligodendrocytes progenitors, NG2-glia might also fulfil physiological roles, although such functions’ mechanistic nature remains unclear. Here, we investigated NG2-glia expression in the striatum of 6-hydroxydopamine lesioned Wistar adult male rats presenting L-DOPA induced dyskinesia (LID). Immunoconfocal morphometry, immunohistochemistry, and western blot techniques were performed to label NG2-glia, astrocyte (GFAP), and microglia (OX-42) in the striatum. Our data revealed that the L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia produces a decrease of the NG2-glia density in the striatum, an area critical to Parkinson’s disease pathophysiology L-DOPA induced dyskinesia instalment. NG2-glia presented a negative correlation with L-DOPA induced dyskinesia score opposing to GFAP and OX-42 immunopositive cells. The doxycycline antidyskinetic therapy induced a robust increment of NG2-glia restoring standards beforehand L-DOPA induced dyskinesia manifestation. The morphometric analysis identified a NG2 reactive phenotype in the striatum of parkinsonian rats, under L-DOPA treatment, not altered by doxycycline. NG2-glia immunolabeled cells do not colocalize with OX-42 or GFAP-labeled cells. In conclusion, our findings provide the first description of the distribution and morphological changes of NG2-glia in the parkinsonian and dyskinetic rats’ striatum. The NG2-glia expression rise in the striatum positively correlated to the decrease in L-DOPA induced dyskinesia scores. The results reveal an aspect of the NG2-glia as a potential therapeutic target for Parkinson´s disease and L-DOPA induced dyskinesia.
Keywords: NG2-glia; Parkinson’s disease; L-DOPA-induced dyskinesia; Astrocyte; Microglia.