Research Paper|Volume 10, Issue 8|pp 2148—2169

Gender- and region-specific changes in estrogen signaling in aging rat brain mitochondria

Christopher M. Evola¹, Tanner L. Hudson¹, Luping Huang¹, Adrian M. Corbett¹, Debra A. Mayes¹

¹Department of Neuroscience, Cell Biology and Physiology, Wright State University, Boonshoft School of Medicine, College of Science and Math, Dayton, OH 45435, USA

Received: July 15, 2018Accepted: August 23, 2018Published: August 31, 2018

Copyright: © 2018 Evola et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Recently epidemiological studies suggest females lose neuroprotection from neurodegenerative diseases as they go through menopause. It has been hypothesized that this neuroprotection is hormone-dependent. The current study characterized cell signaling molecules downstream of estrogen receptor beta that are known to play a role in memory, PKC, ERK, and connexin-43, in regions of the brain associated with memory decline in an attempt to elucidate significant changes that occur post-estrus. Total whole cell lysates were compared to isolated mitochondrial protein because mitochondrial function is known to be altered during aging. As hypothesized, protein concentrations differed depending on age, gender, and brain region. Additionally, many of these changes occurred within mitochondria but not within whole cell lysates indicating that these are epigenetic alterations. These findings accentuate the complexity of aging and provide insight into the gender-specific cellular processes that occur throughout this process.