Figure 9.

Western blots and histology were used to confirm increased ER expression in neurons of the dorsal hippocampus. Immunofluorescent chemistry (A–C) showing expression of ERα within the CA1 region of the hippocampus. A, Merged image shows expression of AAV-ERα tagged with cmyc (green), and ERα (red). B, C, Cmyc (green) tagged to ERα was expressed mainly in neurons immunostained with a neural marker (NeuN, red; B), but not in astrocytes immunostained with the glial marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP, red; C). Images A–C were counterstained with the nuclear marker DAPI (blue). D, E, Western blots using an antibody selective against the human ERα (D) or rat ERα (E) confirmed a band at ∼67 kDa. Animals injected with virus carrying ERα exhibited increased expression of the human ERα and no difference was observed for endogenous ERα. F, G, An antibody against ERβ confirmed that the ERβ vector increased the expression of human ERβ (∼56 kDa; F) in the absence of a change in the 63 and 61 kDa bands (G). For these and subsequent Western blots, the numbers in or above the bars indicate the number of samples used in the analysis.