Subdivisions of the visual system labeled with the Cat-301 antibody in tree shrews

The monoclonal antibody Cat-301 was used to stain neurons and neuropil in the visual thalamus and cortex of tree shrews--small, highly visual mammals that are closely related to primates. Previously, this antibody has been found to label neurons associated with the Y-cell stream of processing in cats and the magnocellular or M-cell stream in macaque monkeys. In tree shrews, the antibody selectively labeled layers 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, layers that are likely to contain neurons previously classified as Y-cells. Of the two layers that contain W-cells, layer 3 was unlabeled and layer 6 was lightly labeled. In area 17, layer 3c was densely stained, as in cats and macaque monkeys. The external half of layer 5 was also densely stained, in contrast to cats where the internal half of layer 5 is stained and macaques where layer 5 is sparsely stained. Area 18 was characterized by dense, uniform staining of inner layer 3 and outer layer 5, but no pattern of alternating light and dense bands crossed the width of area 18 as in macaques. Dense labeling of these same sublayers occurred in cortical areas TA and TD just lateral to area 18. Area TD may be the homologue of area MT of primates, which also stains densely with Cat-301 in macaques. These results indicate that Cat-301 differentially labels layers and areas in the visual system of tree shrews, and raise intriguing issues of comparison among tree shrews, primates, and cats.