The relationship between the occurrence of intractable epilepsy with glial cells and myelin sheath – an experimental study

X. Hu, J.-Y. Wang, R. Gu, H. Qu, M. Li, L. Chen, R. Liu, P. Yuan

Department of Neurology, The People’s Hospital of Guizhou Province, Guiyang, China. yuanp667@163.com

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• Neurology

OBJECTIVE: The occurrence of epilepsy is associated with myelin sheath injury; oligodendrocyte (OL) is the main cell of myelin sheath; In this study, we observed the changes of OL, demyelination, and myelin associated protein in different stages of intractable epilepsy (IE) at the epileptic foci of patients, and provide useful information for the pathophysiology of IE.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: IE patients who received epileptogenic focus resection were recruited as the experimental group, their medical records were collected and postoperative follow-up was performed. The brain tissues from10 cases with non-brain disorders were obtained as controls. Immunofluorescence double staining was used to observe OL expression. The demyelination in epileptic foci was observed by luxol fast blue (LFB) staining method. Real-time fluorescent quantitative (RT) PCR, Western blot methods were used to detect the expressions of myelin-related proteins.

RESULTS: We observed increased OL precursor cells, former OL and decreased mature OL in experimental group when compared with controls (both p < 0.05). The demyelination was obviously higher in experimental group when compared with controls (p < 0.01). We also observed significantly decreasing of myelin basic protein (MBP), oligodendrocytes myelin glycoprotein (OMgp), myelin associated glycoprotein (MAG) and other MAG associated proteins-Nogo receptors (NgRs) and GD1α (p < 0.01) in epileptic foci.

CONCLUSIONS: OL is differentiated abnormally at epileptic foci of patients with IE; the demyelination, decreasing of demyelination and myelin associated protein are related to the occurrence of IE.

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