Characteristics of apoptosis in the brainstem of neonatal SIDS victims

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

To investigate the difference and/or similarity of pathophysiology between post-neonatal SIDS victims and neonatal SIDS victims, the characteristics of apoptosis in the brainstem was studied in this report.The brainstems of twenty-six postneonatal SIDS cases and of twelve control cases were collected in Brussels Free University Children's Hospital Reine Fabiola. The brainstems of six neonatal SIDS cases and three control cases including two cases of which causes of deaths were pulmonary hemorrhage and one case of 2-month old SIDS were collected in Japan. For postneonatal SIDS cases, terminal deoxynucleotidyl nick end labelling (TUNEL) method was carried out to investigate apoptosis and immunohistochemistry of Gap43 was carried out to investigate neuronal plasticity For neonatal SIDS cases, TUNEL method and immunohistochemistry of active Caspase-3 and bcl-2 were carried out to investigate apoptosis. The results were manually counted and the positive cell density was semi-quantitized.In the post-neonatal SIDS cases, the density of TUNEL-positive glias in pedunculopontine tegmentum nuclei was associated with the frequency of obstructive sleep apnea and also correlated with the average number of spines of Gap43-positive neurons in pedunculopontine tegmentum nuclei.As for the neonatal SIDS cases, the cell density of TUNEL positive neurons and Gap43-positive neurons in control cases with pulmonary haemorrhage was slightly higher than in those in neonatal SIDS victims. Also in the neonatal SIDS cases and the 2 month old SIDS case, the cell density of TUNEL positive glias and Gap43-positive glias particularly in the pontine nuclei was higher than in control cases with pulmonary haemorrhage. These similarities were observed in neonatal SIDS cases and the 2 month old SIDS case but no clear different tendency between those were not observed.