Hunting Increases Phosphorylation of Calcium/Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase Type II in Adult Barn Owls

Figure 3

Immunohistochemistry. (a) Regional distribution of αCaMKII (left) and pCaMKII (right). Montages were constructed from low magnification images of a single horizontal section (40 μm) through the L midbrain of an adult owl. The red and green color channels were converted to grayscale for viewing only. Within the inferior colliculus, both proteins were most strongly expressed in ICX, the site of plasticity. Within the optic tectum, αCaMKII was most strongly expressed in layers 8 and 10 (solid arrowhead), whereas pCaMKII was most strongly expressed in layers 12/13 (hollow arrowhead). (b) Subcellular distribution of αCaMKII (left) and pCaMKII (right) in ICX. Shown is a single optical section from a high magnification confocal stack. Both proteins were localized to the same population of cells and both expressed in the perikarya. The relative intensity of staining varied from cell to cell (compare open and hollow arrowheads). (c) Perinuclear ROIs were manually traced for every neuron in the image field ( neurons in this example); nuclear staining mostly occurred in small punctae (one or two per nucleus in this example) and was measured separately. (d) Signal intensities for each perinuclear ROI in adult owls (6 owls, 804 cells). There was no correlation between αCaMKII and pCaMKII signals (, ).

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