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Updated: Feb 3, 2026

Development of Organoids from Mouse Pituitary as In Vitro Model to Explore Pituitary Stem Cell Biology
Published on: February 25, 2022
Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide: Postnatal development in multiple brain stem respiratory-related
Qiuli Liu1, Margaret T T Wong-Riley1
1Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA.
Abstract:
The pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) plays an important role in anterior pituitary hormone secretion, neurotransmission, and the control of breathing. Mice lacking PACAP die suddenly mainly in the 2nd postnatal week, coinciding temporally with a critical period of respiratory development uncovered by our laboratory in the rat. The goal of the current study was to test our hypothesis that PACAP expression is reduced during the critical period in normal rats. We undertook immunohistochemistry and optical densitometry of PACAP (specifically PACAP38) in several brain stem respiratory-related nuclei of postnatal days P2-21 rats, and found that PACAP immunoreactivity was significantly reduced at P12 in the pre-Bötzinger complex, nucleus ambiguus, hypoglossal nucleus, and the ventrolateral subnucleus of the nucleus tractus solitarius. No changes were observed in the control, non-respiratory cuneate nucleus at P12. Results imply that the down-regulation of PACAP during normal postnatal development may contribute to the critical period of vulnerability, when the animals' response to hypoxia is at its weakest.
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