Survival rates through time of hypocretin grafted neurons within their projection site

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness, inadvertent transitions from wakefulness to rapid eye movement sleep (so called “sleep-onset REMS period”) and cataplexy (sudden bilateral skeletal muscle weakness during waking without impairment of consciousness). This disorder has been recently linked to a loss of hypocretin (HCRT) neurons making narcolepsy a neurodegenerative disease. Neuronal replacement could be used to reverse the symptoms of narcolepsy. Towards this end, we have recently reported that HCRT neurons from rat pups can survive when grafted into the pons of adult rats. Here, we investigate the time-course of survival of grafted HCRT neurons into the pons of adult rats. The HCRT neurons are present only in the lateral hypothalamus, and therefore suspension of cells from this region was derived from 8- to 10-day-old rat pups (donor), and grafted into the pons of adult (60 days old) host rats. Control rats received a transplant that consisted of cells from the cerebellum where no HCRT neurons are present. All adult host rats were sacrificed 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 24, or 36 days after grafting. Immunohistochemistry was used to identify and count the presence of the HCRT grafted neurons in the target area. The tally of HCRT neurons present in the graft zone 1 day post-grafting was considered to be the baseline. From day 3 to 36 post-transplant there was a steady decline in the number of HCRT neurons. We also noted that on day 36, the HCRT neurons that survived in the pons had morphological features that were similar to mature HCRT neurons in the adult lateral hypothalamus, suggesting that these neurons might be functionally active. Control rats that received grafts of cerebellar tissue did not show HCRT neurons in the target area. These results demonstrate that there is a progressive decline in the number of transplanted neurons, but a significant percentage of HCRT neurons do survive until day 36. This study highlights the potential use of transplants as a therapeutical tool in order to treat narcolepsy.