Altered branching patterns of Purkinje cells in mouse model for cortical development disorder

Sci Rep. 2011:1:122. doi: 10.1038/srep00122. Epub 2011 Oct 18.

Abstract

Disrupted cortical cytoarchitecture in cerebellum is a typical pathology in reeler. Particularly interesting are structural problems at the cellular level: dendritic morphology has important functional implication in signal processing. Here we describe a combinatorial imaging method of synchrotron X-ray microtomography with Golgi staining, which can deliver 3-dimensional(3-D) micro-architectures of Purkinje cell(PC) dendrites, and give access to quantitative information in 3-D geometry. In reeler, we visualized in 3-D geometry the shape alterations of planar PC dendrites (i.e., abnormal 3-D arborization). Despite these alterations, the 3-D quantitative analysis of the branching patterns showed no significant changes of the 77 ± 8° branch angle, whereas the branch segment length strongly increased with large fluctuations, comparing to control. The 3-D fractal dimension of the PCs decreased from 1.723 to 1.254, indicating a significant reduction of dendritic complexity. This study provides insights into etiologies and further potential treatment options for lissencephaly and various neurodevelopmental disorders.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cerebral Cortex / diagnostic imaging
  • Cerebral Cortex / growth & development
  • Cerebral Cortex / pathology*
  • Dendrites / diagnostic imaging
  • Dendrites / pathology
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Fractals
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional
  • Lissencephaly / pathology
  • Malformations of Cortical Development / pathology
  • Mice
  • Mice, Neurologic Mutants
  • Purkinje Cells / diagnostic imaging
  • Purkinje Cells / pathology*
  • X-Ray Microtomography