Glycoprotein transport in the rat cerebellum

The fate of tritiated fucose in rat cerebellum has been followed using autoradiographic techniques for a period up to one week after intraventricular injection. At intervals of up to three hours after injection, Purkinje and granule cell bodies were found to be most heavily labelled. Subsequently this labelling declined and the highest grain density was observed over the molecular layer. The data is interpreted in terms of fucose incorporation into glycoproteins in nerve cell bodies followed by rapid dendritic transport in the Purkinje cell and fast transport in granule cells along ascending axons and parallel fibres.