IMMUNOCYTOCHEMICAL METHOD FOR INVESTIGATING IN-VIVO NEURONAL OXYGEN RADICAL-INDUCED LIPID-PEROXIDATION

The investigation of oxygen radical-induced lipid peroxidative neurona l damage in the context of acute and chronic neurodegenerative disorde rs has been largely limited to the use of ex vivo analytical methodolo gies. These are often fraught with sensitivity or specificity problems , or they are indirect. Furthermore, none of the analytical methods al low precise anatomical identification of the cells that are undergoing peroxidative injury. This paper describes an immunocytochemical metho d for localization of central nervous system (CNS) lipid peroxidation (LP) that employs a rabbit-derived antibody raised against malondialde hyde (MDA)-modified rabbit serum albumin (RSA). MDA is a breakdown pro duct of peroxidized membrane polyunsaturated fatty acids that avidly b inds to cellular proteins. Using the anti-MDA-RSA, we herein illustrat e increased MDA-derived immunostaining: (1) in the spinal cord of tran sgenic familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mice; and (2) in t he selectively vulnerable gerbil hippocampal CA1 region after a 5 min episode of forebrain ischemia and its relationship to the time course of neuronal degeneration. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.