Up-regulation Of Apelin In Brain Tissue Of Patients With Epilepsy And An Epileptic Rat Model

Prolonged epileptic seizures or status epilepticus (SE) can causeneuronal cell death. However, the exact role of neuroprotectant against braininjury during epileptic seizure needs to be further elucidated. The aim of thisstudy was to investigate the expression of the apelin, a novel neuroprotectivepeptide, in brain tissues of the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE)and experimental rats using immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescenceand western blotting analysis and to discuss the possible role of apelin inTLE. Thirty temporal neocortical tissue samples from the patients withdrug-refractory TLE underwent surgical therapy and nine histologicallynormal temporal lobes tissues as controls were used in our study. Fifty-sixSprague–Dawley rats were randomly divided into seven groups, includingone control group and six groups with epilepsy induced bylithium–pilocarpine. Hippocampus and adjacent cortex were taken from thecontrols and epileptic rats at1,3,7,14,30, and60days after onset ofseizures. Apelin was mainly expressed in the neurons of TLE patients andcontrols, and was significantly increased in TLE patients compared with the controls. Apelin was also expressed in the neurons of experimental andcontrol rats, it was gradually increased in the experimental rat post-seizureand reached a stable high level in chronic epileptic phase. Our resultsdemonstrated that the increased expression of apelin in the brain may beinvolved in human TLE.