Volume 52 (10): 1385-1392, 2004 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. Expression of Glutamate Transporters in Rat Cardiomyocytes and Their Localization in the T-tubular System
Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Correspondence to: Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Würzburg, Koellikerstr. 6, D-97070 Würzburg, Germany. E-mail: peter.kugler{at}mail.uni-wuerzburg.de
Glutamate and aspartate play important roles in the intermediary metabolism of the myocardium and have been shown to improve cardiac recovery after hypoxia or ischemia. Limited data are available about the expression of glutamate transporters that are involved in the uptake of glutamate and aspartate in cardiomyocytes. In this study, non-radioactive in situ hybridization (ISH) using complementary RNA probes was applied to detect the glutamate transporters GLT1 variant (GLT1v) and EAAC1 mRNA in rat cardiomyocytes. The transporter proteins were demonstrated by Western blotting and immunocytochemistry using affinity-purified antibodies against transporter peptides. ISH and immunocytochemistry showed that both glutamate transporters are coexpressed in cardiomyocytes. The ISH labeling indicates the distribution of transporter mRNA throughout the cytoplasm of cardiomyocytes. GLT1v and EAAC1 proteins, which showed in Western blots a molecular mass of 60 kD, are strongly enriched and colocalized in the transverse (T)-tubular system of cardiomyocytes. These results may indicate that glutamate/aspartate uptake into cardiomyocytes could be mediated by the high-affinity transporters GLT1v and EAAC1. A high efficiency of glutamate/aspartate transport into cardiomyocytes could be achieved by their localization in the T-tubular system, which consists of tubular invaginations of the sarcolemma extending deep into the cell. (J Histochem Cytochem 52:13851392, 2004)
Key Words: glutamate transporters GLT1 variant EAAC1 cardiomyocytes transverse (T)-tubules
THE DICARBOXYLIC AMINO ACIDS glutamate and aspartate play important roles in the intermediary metabolism of the heart, mainly for aerobic energy production as participants of the malateaspartate shuttle (Safer 1975
The concentrations of glutamate and aspartate in cardiomyocytes are
In this study, I used a highly sensitive method that provides clear cellular resolution, i.e., non-radioactive in situ hybridization (ISH) using cRNA probes (Kugler and Schmitt 1999
Tissue Sources Twenty adult male Wistar rats, purchased from Winkelmann Versuchstierzucht (Borchen, Germany) were used. Under ether anesthesia, the hearts were quickly removed and further processed for ISH, Western blotting, and immunocytochemistry as described below. The animal care procedures were approved by the institutional animal care committee.
In Situ Hybridization
The ISH procedure used was previously described in more detail (Kugler and Schmitt 1999 The sections were then rinsed in Tris-buffered saline (TBS; 100 mM Tris and 150 mM NaCl, pH 7.5) for 5 min, incubated with TBS containing 0.5% blocking reagent (DIG Nucleic Acid Detection Kit; Boehringer) for 30 min, followed by 0.3% Triton X-100 in TBS for 20 min. After incubation with 1.5 U/ml sheep anti-DIG-aP (alkaline phosphatase) conjugated (Boehringer) in TBS containing 0.3% Triton X-100 for 60 min, the sections were washed in TBS and transferred to a 0.1 M Tris buffer (pH 9.5) containing 100 mM NaCl and 50 mM MgCl2 for 2 min before the aP visualization (see below).
The DIG-labeled antisense (sense) cRNA probes used were generated exactly as described previously (Kugler and Schmitt 1999
The procedure used for detection of aP was described recently (Asan and Kugler 1995 For a control, substitution of the antisense cRNA probe by an equivalent amount of labeled sense cRNA probe led to a complete lack of staining (Figure 1b) . Omission of labeled cRNA probes from the respective hybridization mixtures resulted in completely unstained sections.
Antibodies Affinity-purified polyclonal (rabbit) peptide antibodies against the glutamate transporters were used. These antibodies were characterized elsewhere: anti-GLT1v antibody (against a peptide corresponding to amino acid residues 522541; Schmitt et al. 2002
Immunoblotting
Immunostaining Pieces of ventricular myocardium were frozen in liquid nitrogencooled propane, then freeze dried and embedded in Epoxy resin Quetol 651 (Science Services; Munich, Germany). Semithin sections (1 µm) were mounted on glass slides. The resin was removed by placing the slides for a few seconds in sodium methylate solution (Fluka; Neu-Ulm, Germany) (Mayor et al. 1961 The tissue sections were preincubated for 3 hr at room temperature with 2% bovine serum albumin, 10% normal goat serum, and 0.05% Tween-20 (Ferrak; Berlin, Germany) in PBS, pH 7.4. Then the sections were incubated for 2448 hr at 4C with the primary antibody diluted in the preincubation solution (anti-glutamate transporters 15 µg/ml; anti-type IV collagen 1:50; anti-NCX 1:5 to 1:20). After several washes with PBS, the semithin plastic sections were incubated for 90 min at room temperature with indocarbocyanin (Cy3)-labeled secondary antibody (1:800; goat anti-rabbit IgG; Dianova, Hamburg, Germany) and/or with carbocyanin (Cy2)-labeled secondary antibody (1:50; goat anti-mouse IgG; Dianova). Controls were performed with primary antibody, previously absorbed with an excess of the corresponding glutamate transporter peptide used for immunization or without primary antibody. These sections were unstained (Figures 4b and 4d). The sections were examined with a Zeiss laser-scanning microscope (Zeiss LSM 510) equipped with an argon laser (488 nm) for excitation of Cy2, an HeNe laser (543 nm) for excitation of Cy3, and appropriate filter combinations for visualization of Cy2 and Cy3 emissions.
In Situ Hybridization Application of the cRNA probes to cryostat sections of rat heart for detection of GLT1v and EAAC1 mRNAs resulted in identical patterns of cellular distribution (Figure 1). ISH reaction product was deposited throughout the cytoplasm of cardiomyocytes of left and right ventricles. The amount of granular reaction product was moderate. ISH reaction product was also detected in endothelial cells of the endocardium (Figure 1a) and in not-further-characterized cell types in the stroma between cardiomyocytes.
Western Blotting and Immunostaining When the affinity-purified antibodies against GLT1v and EAAC1 were applied to semithin plastic sections (1 µm thick) of the myocardium (left and right ventricular walls), an identical staining pattern was observed intracellularly in cardiomyocytes (Figures 3, 4a, and 4c) . In longitudinal sections through cardiomyocytes, reaction product was deposited in small dots that were arranged in longitudinal parallel rows forming dotted strands (Figure 3a). In tangential longitudinal sections through the cell periphery of cardiomycytes, it was obvious that the dots of neighboring strands also formed transversely oriented dotted strands with regular distances (Figures 3a, 3d, 4a, and 4c). In transverse sections through cardiomyocytes, the fluorescent staining was also arranged in small dots and in short strands that sometimes formed circular profiles and reached to the surface of cells (Figures 3g and 3k). The sarcolemma of cells seemed to be almost unstained, but the dots of reaction product detected in the cell periphery could be also bound to the sarcolemma.
Because the staining pattern of cardiomyocytes showed apparent similarities to that of T-tubules immunostained for the detection of other molecules (Kostin et al. 1998 To prove the likely colocalization of GLT1v and EAAC1, double immunolabeling was performed using a mouse antibody against GLT1v and a rabbit antibody against EAAC1. The resulting immunostaining showed that both transporters are equally codistributed throughout the T-tubular system (Figures 3n3s).
Using non-radioactive ISH and immunocytochemistry, it was found that the glutamate transporters GLT1v and EAAC1 are coexpressed in rat cardiomyocytes. GLT1v was initially cloned from mouse brain and liver (Utsunomiya-Tate et al. 1997
Applying immunocytochemistry on semithin plastic sections (1 µm thick), I was able to detect GLT1v and EAAC1 proteins colocalized in the T-tubular system of cardiomyocytes. The transporter proteins were highly enriched in this localization, and a possibly sarcolemmal spotty labeling could not be excluded with certainty at the light microscopic level. The T-system consists of tubular invaginations of the sarcolemma at the Z-band, extending deep into the cytoplasm and representing a specialized form of sarcolemma. The volume density of the T-system is up to 3.2%, and it represents about one third of the entire cell membrane area (Stewart and Page 1978
Key proteins involved in excitationcontraction (EC) coupling and further membrane proteins are concentrated at the T-tubules, e.g., L-type Ca2+ channels (Carl et al. 1995
The uptake process of both glutamate transporters is electrogenic and is driven by the ion gradients of K+ and Na+ (for review, see Danbolt 2001
Further studies are needed to show whether, in addition to GLT1v and EAAC1, further glutamate transporters are expressed in the myocardium. It is now proven (Y. Dehnes and N.C. Danbolt, unpublished data) by immunoprecipitation, subsequent SDS-PAGE, and immunoblotting that at least three different glutamate transporters are detectable in the heart (Danbolt 2001
Supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. I am indebted to Erna Kleinschroth and Julia Medvedev for their excellent technical assistance.
Received for publication December 16, 2003; accepted June 6, 2004
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