Protein expression patterns of identified neurons and of sprouting cells from the leech central nervous system

It has previously been shown that cephalic, segmental, and caudal ganglia f rom the medicinal leech show differences in their protein composition. Here we studied whether the neuronal reorganization that occurs in cultured seg mental ganglia from the medicinal leech is accompanied by detectable change s in the protein expression pattern. Using silver-stained two-dimensional g els we showed that after 5 and 12 days in culture changes in the protein pa tterns can be detected in isolated ganglia. The changes observed in the two -dimensional gels occurred concomitantly with a sprouting of serotoninergic neurites and a decreased transmitter content of dopaminergic neurites as s hown by using the glyoxylic acid condensation reaction. In addition, we pre sent evidence that Retzius cells, which can be identified by their characte ristic morphology and action potential waveform, exhibit biochemically uniq ue properties with respect to their protein expression pattern, (C) 2000 Jo hn Wiley & Sons, Inc.