Expression And Significance Of Limk1and Its Phosphorylated Form In Patients With Intractable Epilepsy And A Rat Model Of Epileps

PURPOSE：Synaptic plasticity of neurons is often associated withepilepsy, but the exact mechanism remains unknown. Limk1is a coreprotein associated with cytoskeletal plasticity, can affect neural spines andgrowth cone formation, and promote growth of axons and dendrites. So wetested the expression of limk1and its phosphorylated form(p-limk1) inpatients with intractable epilepsy and a rat model of epilepsy to explore itseffect on the pathogenesis of epilepsy.METHODS: Using western blot and immunohistochemicaltechniques detected the expression levels of limk1and p-limk1in12temporal lobe tissues of patients with intractable epilepsy and in12temporal lobe tissues of non-epileptic patients. Using western blot andimmunohistochemical techniques detected the expression levels of limk1and p-limk1in normal rats and in epileptic rat induced by lithiumchloride-pilocarpine at time points of6,24,72hours and7,14,30,60daysafter seizures.RESULTS：In the temporal lobes of humans and hippocampus of rats, in immunohistochemical experiment limk1and p-limk1were discovered inthe cytoplasm of neurons. In patients with intractable epilepsy, the limk1expression level was lower than non-epileptic patients(P<0.05) in westernblot experiment, and the p-limk1expression level was higher than thenon-epileptic patients (P <0.05). In hippocampus of epileptic rats at timepoints of6,72hours and7,14,30,60days, limk1expression level washigher than the control group (P<0.05) in western blot experiments. And inhippocampus of the rat model of epilepsy at time points of6hours,72hours,30days,60days, p-limk1expression level was also higher than the controlgroup (P <0.05).CONCLUSION：In intractable epilepsy patients and epileptic rats,upregulation of p-limk1express is likely to promote the growth of neuralaxons and dendrites, and lead to the abnormal connection of neuralsynapses, the abnormal formation of excitability loop and repeated seizures.In the rat model of epilepsy, expression trend of limk1and p-limk1wasconsistent. But in patients with intractable epilepsy, expression trend oflimk1and p-limk1was not consistent. The result suggests that influencefactors to p-limk1are different in different stages of epilepsy.