Investigating Neurotrophin Signaling Modulation

Andro, fluoxetine, K252a (a pharmacological inhibitor of TrkB), and 5-Bromo-2-deoxyUridine (BrdU) were purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO). Lentiviral (LV)-TrkB-short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and LV-Control-shRNA-EGFP were provided by GeneChem Co., Ltd (Shanghai, China). The doses of Andro (10, 20, 50, and 100 mg/kg), fluoxetine (20 mg/kg), and K252a (25 μg/kg) were selected based on previous reports (Chen et al., 2014 (link); Serrano et al., 2014 (link); Jiang et al., 2017 (link); Ren et al., 2017 (link); Wang et al., 2017 (link); Ni et al., 2018 (link)). Andro, fluoxetine, and K252a were dissolved in 0.9% sodium chloride (NaCl) containing 10% dimethyl sulfoxide and 20% Cremaphor EL (Vehicle). BrdU was dissolved in 0.9% NaCl. All compounds were i.p. injected at a concentration of 10 mL/kg. LV-TrkB-shRNA-EGFP and LV-Control-shRNA-EGFP were stereotaxically injected into the hippocampus.