Ce. Hagemeyer et al., Different testosterone metabolism by immortalized embryonic and postnatal hippocampal neurons from C57BL/6 mice: A crucial role for androstenedione, J NEUROSC R, 60(1), 2000, pp. 106-115
Steroid hormones influence the development of undifferentiated brain during
ontogenesis. In the present study we investigated the metabolic pathway of
testosterone in immortalized embryonic and postnatal hippocampal neurons f
rom C57BL/6 mice. Both cell lines are capable of metabolizing testosterone
to 6 alpha-hydroxytestosterone, 6 beta-hydroxytestosterone and androstenedi
one, The formation was found to correlate with protein concentration and ti
me of incubation. These linearities were significant for all metabolites ex
cept androstenedione that was the main metabolite in embryonic hippocampal
neurons and nearly absent in postnatal neurons. Moreover, only embryonic ce
lls react to testosterone with a decrease of beta-tubulin expression, that
was a typical effect indicating induced neuronal maturation. Application of
androstenedione caused the same decrease of beta-tubulin expression as tes
tosterone did before. Our results of hippocampal testosterone metabolism in
vitro confirm that not only estradiol and 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone coul
d impact neural tissue but also androstenedione is a powerful metabolite in
volved in prenatal neuronal differentiation. J. Neurosci. Res. 60:106-115,
2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.