Originally published as JHC exPRESS on August 8, 2005. doi:10.1369/jhc.5A6662.2005
Volume 53 (12): 1517-1524, 2005 Copyright ©The Histochemical Society, Inc. Immunohistochemical Localization of Huntingtin-associated Protein 1 in Endocrine System of the Rat
Division of Histology and Embryology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People's Republic of China (ML,JS,YZ,HL), and Department of Human Genetics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia (S-HL,X-JL) Correspondence to: He Li, PhD, Division of Histology and Embryology, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China. E-mail: heli{at}mails.tjmu.edu.cn
Huntingtin-associated protein 1 (HAP1) was originally found to be localized in neurons and is thought to play an important role in neuronal vesicular trafficking and/or organelle transport. Based on functional similarity between neuron and endocrine cell in vesicular trafficking, we examined the expression and localization of HAP1 in the rat endocrine system using immunohistochemistry. HAP1-immunoreactive cells are widely distributed in the anterior lobe of the pituitary, scattered in the wall of the thyroid follicles, or clustered in the interfollicular space of the thyroid gland, exclusively but diffusely distributed in the medullae of adrenal glands, and selectively located in the pancreas islets. HAP1-containing cells were also found in the mucosa of stomach and small intestine with a distributive pattern similar to that of gastrointestinal endocrine cells. However, no HAP1-immunoreactive cell was found in the cortex of the adrenal gland, the testis, and the ovary. In the posterior lobe of the pituitary, HAP1-immunoreactive products were not detected in the cell bodies but in many stigmoid bodies, one kind of non-membrane-bound cytoplasmic organelle with a central or eccentric electron-lucent core. HAP1-immunoreactive stigmoid bodies were also found in the cytoplasm of endocrine cells in the thyroid gland, the medullae of adrenal gland, the pancreas islets, the stomach, and small intestine. The present study demonstrates that HAP1 is selectively expressed in part of the small peptide-, protein-, and amino-acid analog and derivative-secreting endocrine cells but not in steroid hormone-secreting cells, suggesting that HAP1 is also involved in intracellular trafficking in certain types of endocrine cells. (J Histochem Cytochem 53:15171524, 2005)
Key Words: huntingtin-associated protein 1 intracellular trafficking rat endocrine cell immunohistochemistry
HUNTINGTIN-ASSOCIATED PROTEIN-1 (HAP1) was first identified by yeast two-hybrid screening for its association with huntingtin, the protein mutated in Huntington's disease (Li et al. 1995
HAP1 has been found in several species including the rat, mouse, and human (Li et al. 1995
HAP1 has been electron microscopically found to be associated with various kinds of neurocytoplasmic organelles and inclusions such as microtubules, synaptic vesicles, and stigmoid bodies (Gutekunst et al. 1998 High levels of HAP1 expression in the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland imply that HAP1 may be important for endocrine function. Endocrine cells are similar to neurons to some extent; however, an immunohistochemical observation of HAP1 in endocrine system remains to be attempted. In the present study, we carry out immunohistochemistry to examine the distribution of HAP1 in endocrine organs and tissues including the pituitary, thyroid, adrenal medulla, pancreas islet, the mucosa of the stomach, and small intestine. The results demonstrate that HAP1 is selectively expressed in some endocrine cells.
Animals and Tissue Preparation A total of ten 10- to 12-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats, six males and four females, weighing 220250 g, were used in this study. All rats were treated in accordance with the Guidelines for Animal Experimentation of the Experimental Animal Science Center of Tongji Medical College. They were deeply anesthetized by intraperitoneal injection of sodium pentobarbital (100 mg/kg bodyweight) and then perfused via ascending aorta with 100 ml of 0.01 M sodium phosphate-buffered 0.85% saline (PBS; pH 7.4), followed by 300 ml of 0.1 M sodium phosphate buffer (PB; pH 7.4) containing 4% paraformaldehyde. After perfusion, pituitary glands, thyroid glands, adrenal glands, pancreas, testes or ovaries, stomachs, duodenum, jejunum, and ileum were removed and postfixed in the same fixative at 4C for 46 hr. The removed organs were soaked in cold 0.1 M PB containing 30% sucrose at 4C overnight for cryoprotection, quickly frozen, and cut into 10- to 30-µm sections on a cryostat. Frozen sections were collected in ice-cold PBS or directly mounted onto gelatin-coated slides and kept at 4C until use.
Immunohistochemistry
Light microscopic immunohistochemistry revealed that HAP1 immunoreactivites were present in a series of endocrine organs and mucosa of gastrointestinal tracts but not in the testes and ovaries.
Pituitary Glands
Thyroid Glands Immunohistochemical staining showed that the thyroid gland contained HAP1-positive cells, which were similar to parafollicular cells in their pattern of distribution, i.e., they occurred as solitary cells scattered in the wall of the thyroid follicles or small clusters in the interfollicular space (Figure 2A). Strongly HAP1-immunoreactive stigmoid bodies were also detected in the HAP1-positive cells (Figure 2B). In contrast, no HAP1 was detected in follicular cells.
Adrenal Glands Moderate to strong HAP1 immunoreactivity was exclusively but diffusely distributed in the medullae of adrenal glands. A large number of HAP1-positive cells were arranged in nests or short cords (Figure 3). On the other hand, cortical cells including cells in zona glomerulosa, zona fasculata, and zona reticularis did not show any HAP1 immunoreactivity.
Pancreas Islets Moderate HAP1 immunoreactivity was also found exclusively in the endocrine portion of the pancreas, the pancreas islets (Figure 4). They were distributed throughout the islets and localized in the cytoplasm. Occasionally, stigmoid bodies with intense HAP1 immunoreactivity were observed. Like the cortex of the adrenal gland, the exocrine portion of the pancreas did not contain any HAP1-immunoreactive product.
Stomachs and Small Intestines HAP1 immunoreactivity was found in the gastrointestinal tract. In the gastric mucosa, many HAP1-positive cells were densely distributed in the glands but were rare in the surface epithelium (Figure 5). HAP1-immunoreactive stigmoid bodies were detected in some glandular HAP1-positive cells (Figure 5B). There were regional differences in positive cell numbers: they were few in the cardiac region, moderate in the fundic region, and numerous in the pyloric region. In the pyloric glands they tended to be located at the bottom of the glands, whereas the body region remained unlabeled. In the duodenum, HAP1-immunoreactive cells were scattered in the villi and intestine glands (Figure 5C), the number being lower than in the stomach. HAP1-positive cells also occurred in the jejunum and ileum in the same way as in the duodenum but were fewer in number than in the duodenum.
To understand the normal function of huntingtin and the mechanisms by which mutant huntingtin causes the specific neurodegeneration in HD, efforts in the search for binding partners of huntingtin have led to the identification of several huntingtin-interacting or -associated proteins (Li et al. 1995
The present study reveals that stigmoid bodies are present not only in the brain but also in the endocrine organs or tissues; some amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells that express HAP1 contain one to two stigmoid bodies with strong HAP1-immunoreactivity. Abundant HAP1-positive stigmoid bodies but no HAP1-positive cell bodies are found in the posterior lobe of the pituitary. The HAP1-positive stigmoid bodies in the region seem to be located within the unmyelinated nerve fibers that come from the neuroendocrine cells or the secretory neurons in the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus. By double-labeling immunofluorescence, we have found that the neurons in both supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei express HAP1, which colocalized with vasopressin (Shen et al., unpublished data). HAP1 has been regarded as an essential component and molecular marker of the stigmoid body (Gutekunst et al. 1998
Chemically, hormones secreted by endocrine cells are divided into two classes: amino acid-derived hormones and steroid hormones. The amino acid-derived hormones include small peptides, proteins, amino acid analogs, and derivatives, e.g., catecholamines; the steroid hormones are cholesterol-derived compounds. Accordingly, endocrine cells are classified as either amino acid-derived hormone-secreting cells or steroid hormone-secreting cells. The former includes the endocrine cells in the anterior and intermediate lobes of the pituitary gland, neuroendocrine cells in the hypothalamus, parafollicular cells in the thyroid gland, medullary cells of the adrenal gland, endocrine cells in pancreas islet, and the diffuse endocrine cells distributed in the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. The latter or steroid hormone-secreting cells include the adrenal cortical cells, interstitial cells in the testis, and theca and lutein cells in the ovary. Intriguingly, our study demonstrates that HAP1 is expressed in amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells but not in the steroid hormone-secreting endocrine cells, suggesting that HAP1 might be highly relevant to the functions of the amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells but not important for steroid-secreting endocrine cells. However, whereas the present immunohistochemical examination fails to detect HAP1 in rat testis and ovary, previous in situ hybridization histochemical study has shown the expression of HAP1 mRNA in mouse testis and ovary (Dragatsis et al. 2000 In the pituitary, only some but not all anterior cells are labeled by HAP1 antibody; thus, it seems HAP1 is expressed in specific amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells, which is in line with our preliminary double-labeling immunfluorescent study in the rat. In the pituitary, HAP1 is selectively expressed in thyrotrophs but not in corticotrophs and somatotrophs. In the pancreas islets, B cells are HAP1 positive, but A cells and D cells are HAP1 negative. In the mucosae of stomach and duodenum, HAP1 is expressed in the gastrin cells but not in the somatostatin cells (Liao et al., unpublished data).
The amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells are similar to neurons in many aspects. For example, all amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells contain secretory granules that are similar to large dense core vesicles contained in axonal terminals of neurons. The medullary cells of the adrenal gland are modified postganglionic sympathetic neurons containing numerous large dense core vesicles. Synthesized hormone is packed in and transported by secretory granules in the same way as neurotransmitter is and by synaptic vesicles of neurons. Both hormone and neurotransmitter are released by exocytosis. Similar to neuroexocytosis, hormone release from granules or large dense core vesicles in endocrine cell is triggered by calcium influx through voltage-dependent channels (Zhang et al. 1998
Growing evidence has shown that HAP1 is involved in intracellular trafficking in neurons (Li and Li 2005 Secretion of amino acid-derived hormones from endocrine cells involves active trafficking of secretory granules and transport of hormones and membrane receptors. The expression of HAP1 in some classes of the amino acid-derived hormone-secreting endocrine cells strongly suggests that HAP1 also plays an important role in the trafficking of secretory granules, associated hormones or molecules, and membrane receptors in these specific endocrine cells.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30225024).
Received for publication February 23, 2005; accepted July 19, 2006
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