Table 1.
Summary of Brain Localization of Aromatase.
| Species | Year | Detection Technique | Brain Areas Localized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Human | 1971 | Aromatase Activity Assay (AAA) | • Fetal diencephalon (Naftolin et al., 1971) |
| Rat | 1972 | AAA | • Male and female anterior hypothalamus (HYP) (Naftolin et al., 1972) |
| Turtle | 1977 | AAA | • Strio-amygdaloid complex, HYP (Callard et al., 1977) |
| Rat | 1977 | AAA | • Preoptic area (POA), mediobasal HYP (Selmanoff et al., 1977) |
| Bird, Snake, Shark, Teleost | 1978 | AAA | • Forebrain (Callard et al., 1978) |
| Rat | 1984 | AAA | • Amygdala (AMG), POA, HPC, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, anterior pituitary. In female, no change in estrous cycle or after ovariectomy (Roselli et al., 1984) |
| Rat | 1984 | AAA | • Castration decreased aromatase activity in POA by 60 % (Roselli and Resko, 1984) |
| Monkey | 1986 | AAA | • Highest in HYP, also detected in AMG, hippocampus (HPC), cortex (MacLusky et al., 1986) |
| Songbird | 1990 | AAA | • Nuclei of the song system, Female greater E2 production than male (Vockel et al., 1990) |
| Mouse | 1991 | Immuno-histochemistry (IHC) | • High in medial and tuberal HYP (Balthazart et al., 1991a, b) |
| Quail | 1991 | IHC | • Majority of aromatase-positive neurons in HYP colocalize ERα (Balthazart et al., 1991b) |
| Rat | 1993 | AAA | • Aromatase activity in neurons, low in astrocytes, absent in oligodendrocytes (Negri Cesi et al., 1993) |
| Chicken | 1994 | IHC | • Aromatase high in HYP, HPC (Beyer et al., 1994b) |
| Mouse | 1994 | IHC | • Aromatase immunoreactivity in mouse cultures of hypothalamic and cortical cells, only in neurons (Beyer et al., 1994a) |
| Songbird | 1994 | In situ hybridization (ISH) | • Aromatase mRNA detected in POA, HYP, HPC, neostriatum (Shen et al., 1994) |
| Rat | 1994, 1998 | ISH | • Aromatase mRNA highest in POA, medial preoptic nucleus, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, AMG (Lauber and Lichtensteiger, 1994; Roselli et al., 1998) |
| Human | 1996 | Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) | • Aromatase mRNA highest in pons, thalamus, HYP and HPC (Sasano et al., 1998) |
| Human | 1998 | RT-PCR, AAA | • Aromatase mRNA and activity detected in temporal lobe cortex (Steckelbroeck et al., 1999; Stoffel-Wagner et al., 1998) |
| Quail, Rat, Monkey, Human | 1996 | AAA | • Aromatase activity high in human cerebral cortex vs. subcortical regions (10443682) POA, HYP, limbic areas, dendrites, perikaryal, axons, synaptic vesicles (9053779) |
| Rat, mouse | 1999 | IHC and AAA | • Aromatase immunoreactivity/activity induced in HPC astrocytes after kainic acid or penetrating injury (Garcia-Segura et al., 1999) |
| Human | 1999 | RT-PCR | • Aromatase mRNA expressed in temporal and frontal cortex and HPC, No sex difference (Stoffel-Wagner et al., 1999) |
| Rat | 2003 2004 |
RT-PCR, IHC, electron microscopy (EM), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) | • In male rat HPC pyramidal neurons (Shibuya et al., 2003) • Aromatase localized in pre- and post-synaptic sites in male rat HPC, E2 synthesized in HPC and increased by NMDA, E2 very stable in and not significantly metabolized (Hojo et al., 2004) |
| Zebra Finch | 2004 2005 |
IHC, EM | • Aromatase and NMDAR co-expressed in HPC neurons (Saldanha et al., 2004), aromatase is presynaptic (Peterson et al., 2005) |
| Human | 2006 | RT-PCR, IHC | • Aromatase expressed in pyramidal neurons of temporal cortex, small number astrocytes positive, no expression GABAergic interneurons (Yague et al., 2006) |
| Rat | 2006 | RT-PCR, Western blot (WB), IHC, EM, HPLC | • E2 synthesized locally in rat HPC neurons, Basal conc was 1 nM in HPC. Aromatase, P450scc, 3β-HSD, 17β-HSD, STAR all expressed in HPC neurons (Mukai et al., 2006) |
| Monkey | 2008 | IHC | • Aromatase expressed in temporal cortex, HPC pyramidal neurons, dentate gyrus (DG) granule cells, and some interneurons (Yague et al., 2008) |
| Human | 2010 | IHC | • Widespread aromatase expression in HPC pyramidal neurons, DG granule cells, and interneurons in normal and epileptic HPC tissue (Yague et al., 2010) |
| Rat | 2010 | IHC | • Aromatase staining present in synapses and presynaptic terminals of cultured rat cortical neurons (Srivastava et al., 2010) |
| Zebra Finch | 2013 | IHC | • Aromatase expression constitutive in neurons and induced in astrocytes (Saldanha et al., 2013) |
| Rat | 2014 | IHC | • Aromatase expression constitutive in HPC and cortical neurons, induced in astrocytes after cerebral ischemia (Zhang et al., 2014) |
| Rat | 2014 | RT-PCR | • Long-form of aromatase expressed in many brain regions, no sex difference in dorsal HPC expression and no regulation by gonadal/hormone (Tabatadze et al., 2014) |
| Rat | 2016 | Microsome-based AAA using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) | • Distribution of aromatase long-form mRNA correlated with AA and was highest in AMG, POA and HPC. (Li et al., 2016) |
| Mouse | 2019 | IHC, WB, High Sensitivity Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) | • Aromatase expression in HPC and cortex of male and female mouse, E2 levels in HPC and cortex ~1 nM. Genetic deletion of forebrain neuronal aromatase leads to defects in synaptic plasticity, LTP and memory (Lu et al., 2019) |
| Mouse | 2020 | IHC, WB, High Sensitivity ELISA | • Astrocyte aromatase and E2 increased in HPC after cerebral ischemia. Genetic deletion of forebrain neuronal or astrocyte aromatase leads to reduced astrocyte activation and attenuated neuroprotection after cerebral ischemia (Lu et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020) |