Ischemia changes the coexpression of somatostatin and neuropeptide Y in hippocampal interneurons

Transient cerebral ischemia causes extensive cell death in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells and selective loss of interneurons in the dentate hilus. Many hippocampal interneurons can be classified by their contents of somatostatin (SS) and/or neuropeptide Y (NPY). Following ischemia in the rat, most of the NPY immunoreactivity is permanently lost in hippocampus. Furthermore, SS interneurons in the dentate hilus die, whereas CA1 interneurons survive and their expression of SS mRNA and peptide returns to preischemic levels within 16 days after ischemia. We have addressed the following questions: (1) Does the loss of NPY involve a specific downregulation in surviving CA1 interneurons that pre-ischemically expressed both SS and NPY? (2) Can the subpopulation of dying interneurons in hilus be identified from their preischemic coexpression of SS and NPY? We investigated the coexpression of SS mRNA and NPY peptide using combined in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry. Cells containing one or both markers were counted in control sections and sections taken 2-16 days after ischemia from the hippocampal formation. In CA1, a decrease in the number of neurons containing NPY alone as well as a decrease in the number of neurons coexpressing NPY and SS was observed, whereas the number of neurons containing SS alone increased 16 days after ischemia. We conclude that neurons coexpressing SS and NPY before ischemia added to the number of neurons containing SS alone after ischemia, because NPY expression was selectively down regulated in the coexpressing population. In hilus, we demonstrated both survival and ischemic cell death of neurons expressing either SS, NPY or both, indicating that hilar interneurons dying from ischemia cannot unequivocally be identified from their preischemic colocalization of SS and NPY.