The hippocampal formation consists of the dentate gyrus, the hippocampus proper, the subicular complex and the entorhinal cortex. This structure is a major component of the medial temporal lobe, which is essential for memory formation. We investigated the expression of Zif268, a transcription factor regulated by physiological synaptic activity, in the monkey hippocampal formation. Immunoprecipitation with an anti-Zif268 antibody identified monkey Zif268 as an 86,000 molecular weight protein. In the subicular complex, the majority of neurons in the presubiculum were intensely immunopositive for Zif268 when stained with this antibody. A moderate number of Zif268-immunopositive neurons were located in the parasubiculum and the number of these neurons in the subiculum proper was smallest among the three subicular subdivisions. In the entorhinal cortex, layer- and subdivision-specific expression of Zif268 was observed. The rostral part of the entorhinal cortex contained many Zif268-immunopositive neurons in layer II, but immunopositive neurons were only sparsely present in deeper layers. By contrast, the caudal part of the entorhinal cortex contained many Zif268-immunopositive neurons in layer VI and a smaller number of those neurons in layer II. In the dentate gyrus, a few granule cells expressed Zif268. The hippocampus proper contained weakly immunostained neurons in CA1-CA3. No glial cells were immunostained by the anti-Zif268 antibody. Fos and Fos-related antigens were expressed only at very low levels in the examined areas.This study is the first report discussing the expression of immediate early genes in the primate hippocampal formation. Many Zif268-expressing neurons were observed in the presubiculum and layer II of the rostral part of the entorhinal cortex. These subdivision-specific patterns of Zif268 expression may reflect differences in synaptic activities in these regions.

Abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that several transcription factor genes are rapidly activated by neuronal stimulation. For example, we have found that prolonged and repeated seizure activity produced by administration of chemical convulsants induces a rapid and transient increase in mRNA levels of four immediate early genes in rat brain. These genes, zif/268, c‐fos, c‐jun, andjun‐B, encode sequence specific DNA binding proteins thought to act as transcription regulatory factors. To ascertain whether a brief electrically induced seizure discharge of the type utilized in clinical electroconvulsive treatment is sufficient to induce a similar genomic response, we have examined the response of these mRNAs in rat brain following single and repeated electroshock‐induced seizures. After electroshock, mRNA levels of each of these genes increase within 15 min, and all except cjun return to near baseline levels within 4 h. Although this response is most prominent in granule cell neurons of the hippocampus, increases are also apparent in neocortex and pyriform cortex. The rapid mRNA response persists in animals receiving a chronic electroshock protocol similar to that used in clinical electroconvulsive therapy. Intrahippocampal infusion of the sodium channel antagonist tetrodotoxin blocks hippocampal mRNA responses without blocking seizures, indicating a role for electrical excitation in the electroshockinduced mRNA response. By contrast, pretreatment with anticonvulsants or selective NMDA antagonists, which reduce seizure intensity and block hindlimb extension, fails to alter mRNA responses, suggesting that seizure induction, rather than spread, is linked to these mRNA responses. Because electroshock induces robust, highly reproducible mRNA responses, it may be useful to study the neuronal genomic response to stimulation.

Peptidylglycine alpha-amidating monooxygenase (PAM; EC 1.14.17.3) is a copper-, molecular oxygen-, and ascorbate-dependent enzyme which catalyzes the COOH-terminal amidation of bioactive peptides. Expression of PAM in the adult male rat anterior pituitary was evaluated after experimental manipulation of thyroid status. Levels of PAM mRNA increased 4- to 7-fold in animals made hypothyroid by treatment with 6-n-propyl-2-thiouracil or thyroidectomy and were not diminished below control levels in animals made hyperthyroid by treatment with T4. Treatment of thyroidectomized animals with T4 prevented the increase in PAM mRNA levels; similar doses of T4 returned serum TSH and anterior pituitary PAM mRNA to euthyroid values. Based on Northern blot analysis and amplification of fragments derived from rat PAM-1 by reverse transcription and the polymerase chain reaction, thyroid status did not affect the distribution of PAM mRNA among its various alternatively spliced forms. The specific activity of PAM in the anterior pituitary was increased slightly in both the soluble and particulate fractions from chemically hypothyroid rats; the majority of the PAM activity in the rat anterior pituitary was soluble, and increased secretion of enzyme may account for the lesser effect of chemical thyroidectomy on specific activity compared to mRNA levels. Western blot analysis demonstrated a 104-kDa PAM protein in particulate fractions prepared from control, PTU-treated, and T4-treated animals. The soluble fraction contained major PAM proteins of 95 and 75 kDa, and PTU treatment brought about an increase in the prevalence of the 75-kDa form of PAM protein.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Recent evidence suggests that cell surface receptor stimulation regulates expression of genes that may in turn be involved in long-term alterations of cellular behavior. To characterize synaptic mechanisms involved in regulating cellular immediate early genes (IEGs) in the brain, this chapter studies mRNA levels in hippocampal granule cells after excitatory stimulation via perforant path (pp) afferents. The pp-granule cell synapse has been extensively characterized because it demonstrates long-term potentiation of synaptic potentials following specific stimuli. This paradigm therefore provides the opportunity to examine the association of IEG activation with specific synaptic stimuli as well as with neuronal plasticity. The major findings of these studies are (1) IEG mRNA levels are dynamically regulated in the brain by neuron activating stimuli; (2) immediate early genes may be selectively regulated by specific stimuli; (3) synaptic NMDA receptor activation is involved in the rapid regulation of zif/268 mRNA levels by high-frequency pp stimuli; (4) convergent inhibitory synaptic inputs coordinately modulate LTP and zif/268 mRNA increases; and ( 5 ) the intensity of synaptic stimuli necessary to increase zif/268 mRNA levels is similar to that required to induce LTP.

Recent studies in invertebrate neurons indicate a role for rapid genomic responses in neurotransmitter induced synaptic plasticity (Montarolo et al. 1986). RNA and protein synthesis also appear critical for certain forms of neural plasticity in vertebrate systems (Agranoff 1989). These studies focus attention on the role of transmitter regulated gene expression in neuroplasticity. Neurotransmitters (Greenberg et al. 1986), growth factors (Lau and Nathans 1985; Milbrandt 1987) and neuroexcitatory stimuli (Morgan et al. 1987) rapidly induce genes that code for transcription regulatory proteins, demonstrating that cellular membrane events can rapidly regulate genomic function. Moreover, because transcription factors bind to DNA and regulate gene expression, these observations suggest that a regulated cascade of genomic events may be important in transmitter induced responses. To assess the postulated role of transcription factors in brain physiology, we have focused on identifying transcription factor genes that are rapidly induced in brain and on examining mechanisms involved in their regulation. We have identified a set of transcription factors that are regulated by synaptic activity and NMDA receptors and therefore may play a role in neuroplasticity.

Recent studies in invertebrates indicate that a rapid genomic response to neuronal stimulation has a critical role in long-term changes in synaptic efficacy. Because several of the genes (immediately early genes; IEGs) that respond rapidly to growth factor stimulation of vertebrate cells in vitro are also activated by neuronal stimulation in vivo, attention has focused on the possibility that they play a part in synaptic plasticity in vertebrate nervous systems. Four IEGs thought to encode transcription factors, zif/268 (also termed Egr-1, NGFI-A, Krox 24), c-fos, c-jun, and jun-B are rapidly induced in the brain by seizure activity, and we have now studied the induction of these genes in a well-characterized model of synaptic plasticity in the vertebrate brain--long-term potentiation (LTP) of the perforant pathgranule cell (pp-gc) synapse in vivo. We found that high-frequency (but not low-frequency) stimulation of the pp-gc synapse markedly increases zif/268 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels in the ipsilateral granule cell neurons; mRNA of c-fos, c-jun and jun-B is less consistently increased. The stimulus frequency and intensity required to increase zif/268 mRNA levels are similar to those required to induce LTP, which is also seen only ipsilaterally, and both responses are blocked by NMDA-receptor antagonists as well as by convergent synaptic inhibitory inputs already known to block LTP. Accordingly, zif/268 mRNA levels and LTP seem to be regulated by similar synaptic mechanisms.

Administration of the convulsants pentylenetetrazole (Metrazole) or picrotoxin to rats caused a dramatic increase in mRNAs of four putative transcription factor genes, zif/268, c-jun, jun-B, and c-fos, in neurons of the hippocampus and dentate gyrus, as well as other areas of the cerebral cortex, including pyriform cortex and cingulate cortex. The increase in these mRNAs was rapid and transient: amounts peaked within 1 hr and returned to baseline within 2 hr. These results extend the observation made by Morgan et al. [Morgan, J. I., Cohen, D. R., Hempstead, J. L. & Curran, T. (1987) Science 237, 192-197] that c-fos mRNA and protein are induced in rat brain after seizures. We hypothesize that the increase of these putative transcription factor mRNAs in the brain is part of a programmed genomic response of neurons to intense stimulation, which is analogous to the genomic response of nonneuronal cells to growth factors.

Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium preferentially utilize sugar substrates of the phosphoenol-pyruvate:glycose phosphotransferase system (PTS) when the growth medium also contains other sugars. This phenomenon, diauxic growth, is regulated by the crr gene, which encodes the PTS protein IIIGlc (Saffen, D.W., Presper, K.A., Doering, T.L., and Roseman, S. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 16241-16253). We have proposed that non-PTS permeases are regulated by their interaction with IIIGlc, and in vitro studies from other laboratories have provided support for this model, but the in vivo effects of excess IIIGlc are not known. In the present studies, transformed cells that overproduced IIIGlc 2- and 10-fold, respectively, were constructed from a pts+ strain of E. coli and plasmids containing the crr gene. In the 2-fold overproducer, fermentation of, and growth on the non-PTS carbohydrates glycerol, lactose, maltose, and melibiose was generally more sensitive to the glucose analogue methyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside than in a control strain containing normal levels of IIIGlc. In addition, inhibition of lactose permease activity by methyl-alpha-glucoside (inducer exclusion) was more effective in the 2-fold overproducer than in the control strain, particularly when the permease activity was high. The 10-fold IIIGlc overproducing strain had a requirement for the amino acids methionine, isoleucine, leucine, and valine that may or may not be related to the increased concentration of IIIGlc. Fermentation of non-PTS carbohydrates was also poor in the latter strain. Finally, lactose permease activity was 50% of that in control cells containing the same levels of beta-galactosidase, and the lactose permease activity in the IIIGlc overproducer was reduced to an extremely low level in the presence of methyl alpha-glucoside. Thus there is an inverse relationship between the cellular concentration of IIIGlc and the ability to metabolize non-PTS substrates. The results are consistent with the model where inducer exclusion is affected by a direct interaction between IIIGlc and a non-PTS transport system.

Specialized lambda-transducing phages that carry the Escherichia coli genes ptsH, ptsI, crr, cysM, and cysA have been isolated, and the genes were subcloned in plasmid pBR322. Subcloning and restriction mapping data gave the following clockwise order of genes located at about 52 min on the E. coli genetic map: lig, cysK, ptsH, ptsI, crr, cysM, cysA. The nucleotide sequences of ptsH, ptsI, and crr and the corresponding flanking regions have been determined. These genes encode three cytoplasmic proteins of the phosphoenol-pyruvate:glycose phosphotransferase system: HPr, Enzyme I, and IIIGlc, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequences are consistent with amino acid composition and Edman degradation analyses obtained with the purified proteins. The calculated subunit molecular weight values (9,109 for HPr, 63,489 for Enzyme I, and 18,099 for IIIGlc) also agree well with values obtained with the proteins. Results of gamma delta-transposon insertional studies provided definitive evidence that IIIGlc is the gene product of crr, and therefore that IIIGlc plays a critical role in regulating the metabolism and uptake of certain non-PTS sugars (see accompanying papers: Mitchell, W.J., Saffen, D.W., and Roseman, S. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 16254-16260; Misko, T.P., Mitchell, W.J., Meadow, N.D., and Roseman, S. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 16261-16266). The gamma delta transposon studies also suggest that crr is transcribed from an independent promoter located within the ptsI gene. Putative regulatory sequence features include a catabolite gene activator protein-cAMP-binding site and two regions of 2-fold rotational symmetry adjacent to the potential promoter upstream from the HPr structural gene, several ribosome-binding sites, and a rho-independent RNA polymerase termination site downstream from crr. In addition, the ptsI gene contains two highly conserved direct repeats. The significance of these sequence features is discussed with respect to possible multiple forms of pts regulation.

Sugar substrates of the phosphoenolpyruvate:glycose phosphotransferase system (PTS) normally prevent bacterial cells from utilizing sugars that are not substrates of this system (diauxic growth, "the glucose effect"). We have previously shown that this type of PTS-mediated repression can be completely reversed by a single mutation, designated crr. Two lines of evidence are presented in this report showing that crr is the structural gene for IIIGlc, one of the proteins of the PTS. First, homogeneous IIIGlc was isolated from wild-type and a crr- mutant of Salmonella typhimurium, and the proteins were compared. The preparations of IIIGlc were indistinguishable except as follows: IIIGlc from the mutant showed only 2-3% of the activity of the wild-type IIIGlc in its ability to act as a phosphocarrier protein in the in vitro phosphorylation of methyl alpha-glucoside. In addition, under certain conditions, the two proteins exhibited different behavior on gel filtration columns and in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The second line of evidence was obtained by cloning the Escherichia coli crr gene, which has an estimated minimum length of 0.6 kilobase, into a high-copy-number plasmid as part of a 1.3-kilobase fragment. The plasmid transforms E. coli crr- to crr+ strains and simultaneously directs the synthesis of IIIGlc.