Abstracts

Rationale: Mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) is the most frequent reason of medically refractory symptomatic partial epilepsy. The mechanism and genetic background of this unique pathology is not well understood. Aquaporines (AQP) are regulators of water homeostasis in the brain and shown to be expressed in human hippocampus. Our aim was to explore the role of AQP genes in the pathogenetic mechanisms of MTS through evaluation of gene expression in surgically removed human brain tissues. Methods: We analyzed AQP-1 and -4 besides three house-keeping genes as reference by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Relative expressions were calculated according to the delta Ct method and the results were compared by Mann Whitney U test. Results: 23 epileptic patients who undergone surgery due to MTS and 9 autopsy specimens as control tissues were investigated. Clinical findings were concordant with previous studies and 61% of the patients were seizure-free in the postoperative period. AQP-1 and 4 genes expression levels did not differ between MTS patients and control groups. Immunohistochemical analysis of AQP-4 supported the expression results. Conclusions: There are a few previous contradictory results about the expression levels of AQP in MTS and only one study has suggested upregulation of AQP 4. Our study did not support this finding, indicating the complexity of the issue and the need of further studies.