Proteomic analysis of stargazer mutant mouse neuronal proteins involved in absence seizure

The stargazer (stg) mutant mouse, having mutation in stargazin, the calcium channel gamma2 subunit, exhibited several neurological disorders including spontaneous absence seizure, cerebellar ataxia, and head tossing. To understand the molecular pathogenic mechanism of the absence seizure resulted from the loss of stargazin function, the thalamic proteomes between control mouse and stg mouse were compared. We identified 12 proteins expressed differentially (> 1.6-fold) by fluorescence two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis and tandem mass spectrometry. Six of them are involved in basic metabolism including energy metabolism, three in stress response, two in axonal growth regulation, and one in the endoplasmic reticulum processing. All except mortalin showed decreased level of expression in stg mouse. Two stress-related proteins, mouse stress induced phosphoprotein 1 and peroxiredoxin 6 exhibited reduced levels of expression in stg mouse, while the level of another stress protein, mortalin was increased. Analysis of oxidative protein carbonylation in thalamic proteome of stg mouse showed higher level of carbonylated proteins in stg mouse than in control mouse. Interestingly, down-regulation of stress protein mouse stress induced phosphoprotein 1, metabolic enzyme isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase, and the two in neuronal axon growth, collapsin response mediator protein 2 and fascin homolog 1 coincides with the results of our previous study on gamma-butyrolactone-induced transient absence seizure. Our results suggest that the pathogenesis mechanism underlying absence seizure may involve the molecular events contributed by these proteins.