Effect of enhanced expression of leukemia inhibitory factor on histological structure of the hippocampus in transgenic rats produced by TMGT technique

Aim: Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) has beneficial effects on neural stem cell function and neurodegenerative disease treatment. However limited data is available about the effects of LIF over-expression in neural stem cells on brain tissue changes. In this study transgenic rats (TR) with over expression of LIF under the control of nestin gene promoter were produced and histological changes of their hippocampus were studied.
Material and To produce transgenic rats, promoter regions of pIRES2-EGFP vector were replaced with 2nd intron nestin promoter and Hsp68 enhancer sequence, and injected into testes (10 μg) of 10 male rats. After mating with female rats, trangenesis confirmation was done using conventional PCR, real time PCR and fluorescent microscopy. Brain of mature transgenic and control rats (4 months of age) were obtained, sectioned and stained with H & E and then their hippocampus structure were studied.
LIF gene was significantly expressed in higher levels in hippocampus stem cells of TR comparing to control (P Over expression of LIF in neural stem cells resulted in elevation of oligodendrocytes in hippocampus of rat brain. Because oligodendrocytes destruction are importance in neurodegenerative diseases progression, it is possible that successful LIF transmission into the brain can be used in the future to restore the oligodendrocyte mass.