Huntingtin distribution among striatal output neurons of normal rat brain

Huntingtin is the protein whose mutation leads to Huntington's disease (HD). The protein is heterogeneously distributed in the telencephalon, and not consistently correlated with cell vulnerability in HD [Fusco, F.R., Chen, Q., Lamoreaux, W.J., Figueredo-Cardenas, G., Jiao, Y., Coffman, J.A., Surmeier, D.J., Honig, M.G., Carlock, L.R., and Reiner, A., J. Neurosci., 19 (1999) 1189-1202]. The aim of our study was to investigate a possible preferential distribution of huntingtin among the two main striatal output pathways, namely, the striatonigral and the striatopallidal circuit. Dual label immunofluorescence by means of confocal microscopy was used to detect the presence of huntingtin among striatal projection neurons identified by their cellular content of Substance P, Enkephalin, CB1 receptor, and D1a dopamine receptor. Our data showed that striatopallidal neurons co-containing SP and D1a [Surmeier, D.J., Song, W.J., and Yan, Z., J. Neurosci., 16 (1996) 6579-6591] co-localized with huntingtin in a higher proportion than striatonigral neurons.