Journal: Frontiers in Physiology

Article Title: Plasticity of TRPV1-Expressing Sensory Neurons Mediating Autonomic Dysreflexia Following Spinal Cord Injury

doi: 10.3389/fphys.2012.00257

Figure Lengend Snippet: High-thoracic (T3) spinal cord injury-induced selective hypertrophy of sensory neurons expressing the capsaicin receptor (TRPV1) and the artemin receptor (GFRα3) in the L4/L5 DRG . (A) Substance P (SP) – positive DRG neurons and their size-frequency distributions. (B) IB4-binding DRG neurons. (C) P2X3-positive DRG neurons. (D) TRPV1-positive DRG neurons. (E) GFRα3-expressing DRG neurons, known to express TRPV1. The overall proportions of immunopositive neurons [insets (A–E) ] did not change for any subpopulation. Ganglia were harvested 3 months after sham-injury (gray) or complete T3 SCI (black). Scale bar = 50 μm. Asterisks indicate P < 0.05, K–S goodness-of-fit test.

Article Snippet: For immunohistochemistry, slides were incubated in 10% normal donkey serum in PBS plus Triton X-100 (0.1%) for 20 min. We used five antibodies to delineate different subsets of nociceptors: these included antibodies raised against TRPV1 (Neuromics, Edina, MN, USA; 1:2,000), the ionotropic ATP purinoceptor P2X 3 (Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA; 1:1,000), Substance P (Neuromics, 1:1,000), the glycoprotein isolectin B4 (IB4; Neuromics; 1:2,000), the glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor family receptor α 3 (GFRα3; R&D Systems; 1:500).

Techniques: Expressing, Binding Assay