Restriction of high CD15 expression to a subset of rat cerebellar astroglial cells can be overcome by transduction with adenoviral vectors expressing the rat α1,3-fucosyltransferase IV gene

Glycoconjugates bearing the epitope 3‐fucosyl‐N‐acetyllactosamine (CD15) are believed to be involved in cell‐cell interactions and are temporally and spatially regulated in the brain. In the rat postnatal cerebellum, CD15 is predominantly expressed in the molecular layer by Bergmann glial cells, but little CD15 expression is seen in other astroglia, and the basis for this restricted expression is not known. Adenoviral vectors were shown to efficiently deliver transgenes to cerebellar glial cells and were used to determine whether manipulation of glycosyltransferase activities could enhance the expression of CD15 in these cells. In dissociated cerebellar cell cultures, few glial cells normally express CD15. However, transduction of these cells with an adenoviral vector (AdGFPCMVFucT) that expressed both green fluorescent protein (GFP) and FLAG‐tagged rat α1,3‐fucosyltransferase IV (rFuc‐TIV) resulted in high CD15 expression on the surface of all transduced glial cells. Likewise, infection of cerebellar slice cultures caused the appearance of CD15‐positive transduced cells of glial cell morphology in the internal granule cell layer. Thus, enhancement of Fuc‐T activity caused robust CD15 expression in cerebellar glial cells that normally show little expression of CD15, suggesting a role for Fuc‐T levels in regulating CD15 expression in this cell type. The manipulation of levels of glycosyltransferases using adenoviral vectors may prove a useful tool to investigate questions of glycoconjugate regulation in glial cells in the developing rodent cerebellum. GLIA 31:144–154, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.