Pregnancy Promotes Maternal Hippocampal Neurogenesis in Guinea Pigs

Figure 4

Assessment of the time course of neuronal differentiation of newly produced subgranular cells in adult female guinea pigs with BrdU pulse-chasing. (a) illustrates the experimental design. Two BrdU injections are given to nonpregnant animals at 3 months of age, with brains examined at 2, 7, 14, 30, 42, 60, and 120 days post-BrdU administration. (b) summarizes the percentage rates of BrdU+ cells colocalizing with doublecortin (DCX) and the neuronal nuclear antigen (NeuN) at the above surviving time points based on confocal microscopic analysis. BrdU birth-dated cells coexpress DCX as early as 2 days up to 42 days and coexpress NeuN from 14 days onward. A transition from DCX- to NeuN-expressing granule cells appears to occur largely between 30 to 42 days post-BrdU incorporation. (c–v) show representative confocal double immunofluorescent images at the surviving time points as indicated, with BrdU labeling in red, DCX and NeuN labeling in green, and bisbenzimide (Bis) nuclear labeling in blue. Arrows point to cells colabeled for BrdU and DCX or NeuN. Abbreviations are as defined in Figure 1. Scale  μm in (c) applying to (d, e, g–i, k–m, o–q, and s–u) and equal to 25 μm for the far right image panels.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

(i)

(j)

(k)

(l)

(m)

(n)

(o)

(p)

(q)

(r)

(s)

(t)

(u)

(v)