title page
Acknowledgement
Contents
List of abbreviations 11
Abstract 12
I. Introduction 14
II. Materials and methods 16
1. Animals and experimental protocols 16
2. Induction of ischemic preconditioning and focal ischemia 16
3. Morphometric measurement of brain edema and infarct volume 17
4. Agmatine analysis HPLC 17
4-1. Sample preparation 17
4-2. Apparatus and chromatographic conditions 18
5. Immunostaining for ADC, NOSs, phosphoERK1/2, and BMP-7 18
6. Immunoblotting of ADC, Erk1/2 19
7. Statistical analysis 19
III. Results 20
1. rCBF responses to experimental control group and ischemic preconditioning group in MCAO models 20
2. Brain edema and infarct volume after ischemic injury 21
3. The level of agmatine after ischemic injury 25
4. Assessment for level of ADC 27
5. Assessment for level of NOS and iNOS 29
6. Assessment for level of EFtK1/2, phosphoERK1/2, and BMP-7 32
IV. Discussion 35
V. Conclusion 38
VI. References 39
Abstract(in Korean) 45
Table 1. Infarct volume after ischemic injury 24
Table 2. Level of agmatine after ischemic injury 26
Figure 1. Experimental protocol 17
Figure 2. rCBF of experimental control group and ischemic preconditioning group in MCAO 21
Figure 3. Preconditioning reduces infarct size in a model of MCAO 23
Figure 4. Brain edema after ischemic injury with or without preconditioning 24
Figure 5. Level of agmatine in rat brain tissue 25
Figure 6. Western blots of arginine decarboxylase 27
Figure 7. Immunohistochemistry of arginine decarboxylase 28
Figure 8. Immunohistochemisty, of neuronal nitric oxide synthase in ischemic injured rat brain 30
Figure 9. Immunohistochemistry of inducible nitric oxide synthase in ischemic injured rat brain 31
Figure 10. Western blots of ERK1/2 in ischemic injured rat brain 32
Figure 11. Immunohistochemistry of phosphoERK 1/2 in ischemic injured rat cerebral cortex 33
Figure 12. Immunohistochemistry of phosphoERK1/2 in ischemic injured rat striatum 33
Figure 13. Immunohistochemistry of BMP-7 at post-reperfusion 1hr 34