Intrahippocampal Administration of an Antibody against the HNK-1 Carbohydrate Impairs Memory Consolidation in an Inhibitory Learning Task in Mice

Author： Strekalova T. Wotjak C.T. Schachner M.

Publisher： Academic Press

ISSN： 1044-7431

Source： Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, Vol.17, Iss.6, 2001-06, pp. : 1102-1113

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

Many cell adhesion molecules express the HNK-1 carbohydrate involved in formation and functioning of synapses. To assess its role in learning, we injected the monoclonal HNK-1 antibody or nonimmune IgG into the hippocampus of C57BL/6J mice 1 h after training in a step-down avoidance task. In animals treated with the HNK-1 antibody, latencies of step down in a recall session 48 h after injection did not change compared to training values and were significantly shorter versus IgG-treated controls, which acquired the task normally. Similar differences between the two treatments were also observed after a stronger training protocol in a step-down avoidance paradigm. The HNK-1 antibody was effective only when injected 1 h, but not 48 h after training, thus affecting memory consolidation but not memory recall itself. The HNK-1 antibody impaired memory also in tenascin-R knock-out mice, indicating that extracellular matrix molecule tenascin-R, one of the carriers of the HNK-1epitope in the hippocampus, does not mediate the function of the HNK-1 carbohydrate in this task. Our observations show that the HNK-1 carbohydrate is critically involved in memory consolidation in hippocampus-dependent learning in mammals.