Short-term exercise increases GDNF protein levels in the spinal cord of young and old rats

• Published in: Neuroscience Vol. 240; pp. 258 - 268
• Main Authors: McCullough, M.J, Gyorkos, A.M, Spitsbergen, J.M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Ltd 14-06-2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Age Factors; aging; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Autoantigens - metabolism; Biological and medical sciences; Disease Models, Animal; exercise; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; GDNF; Gene Expression Regulation - physiology; Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor - metabolism; Locomotion; Male; Membrane Proteins - metabolism; motor neuron; Motor Neurons - metabolism; Motor Neurons - pathology; Nerve Growth Factors - metabolism; neural plasticity; Neurology; Physical Conditioning, Animal - methods; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; spinal cord; Spinal Cord - metabolism; Spinal Cord - pathology; Spinal Cord Injuries - pathology; Spinal Cord Injuries - rehabilitation; Swimming; Time Factors; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; polyvinylidene difluoride; BDNF; neural plasticity; exercise; EDTA; NGF; PVDF; glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor; choline acetyltransferase; GDNF; nerve growth factor; motor neuron; ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid; enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; ChAT; SEM; brain-derived neurotrophic factor; standard error of the mean; spinal cord; aging; ELISA; Physical exercise; Spinal cord; Senescence; Rat; Rodentia; Central nervous system; Motor neuron; Protein; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Animal; Plasticity; Glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor
• ISSN: 0306-4522; 1873-7544
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2013.02.063

Highlights • Exercise increases GDNF protein content in the spinal cord. • Low-intensity, forced running elicits the greatest fold-change in GDNF content. • Motor neuron cell body size increases over the same time course as GDNF protein. • Molecular weight of GDNF protein in the spinal cord changes with advancing age. • Exercise increases GDNF staining in and around motor neurons in the spinal cord.