Original articleThe Striatal-Enriched Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase Gates Long-Term Potentiation and Fear Memory in the Lateral Amygdala
Section snippets
Reagents
Cycloheximide, SL327, and glutamate were from Calbiochem (La Jolla, California). The anti-ERK2 polyclonal antibody that only recognizes ERK2 (C-14) and the anti-myc monoclonal antibody (sc-40) were purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, California). Anti-p44/42 ERK antibodies that detect ERK1/2 when dually phosphorylated at Thr-202 and Tyr-204 (TPEYP) were obtained from Cell Signaling Technology (Beverly, Massachusetts). Bicuculline was obtained from Tocris Cookson (Ballwin,
STEP is Present in the Amygdala and Co-localizes with ERK2
We first investigated whether STEP is co-expressed with ERK2 in the LA neurons relevant to fear conditioning by using immunofluorescent staining of rat brain coronal sections. For these experiments, we used an antibody specific to ERK2. Striatal-enriched tyrosine phosphatase and ERK2 co-localized in most cells of the dorsolateral and ventrolateral amygdala (LAd and LAv) (Figure 1A). To determine which STEP isoforms were expressed in LA neurons, we performed Western blot analyses on tissue
Discussion
Here we report the ability of the PTP STEP to interfere with memory consolidation in a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm and it does so, in part, through its ability to regulate the ERK signaling pathway. In the lateral amygdala, activation of the ERK pathway results in long-term changes in synaptic activity that are thought to underlie the consolidation of a Pavlovian auditory fear memory (Rodrigues et al 2004, Schafe et al 2000, Schafe and LeDoux 2000). Activated ERK1/2 is required for the
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