Astrocytic hypertrophy in dysmyelination influences the diffusion anisotropy of white matter

The effect of a proteolipid protein (PLP) mutation on the developing white matter anisotropy was examined by diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT‐MRI) in a noninvasive study of a mouse model of Pelizaeus‐Merzbacher disease (PMD). The jimpy PLP mutation in mice produces an irreversible dysmyelination in jimpy males, whereas heterozygous females exhibit a transient hypomyelination, as assessed by a longitudinal study of the same mice during development. Modifications of the different individual DT‐MRI parameters were highlighted by specific changes in tissue structures caused by the mutation that includes the hypomyelination, axonal abnormalities, and recovery. Astrocytic hypertrophy is a striking cellular event in dysmyelinated jimpy brain, where most axons or bundles of fibers are entirely wrapped by astrocyte cytoplasmic processes, so its influences on DT‐MRI parameters in dysmyelination were examined for the first time. DT‐MRI data of the jimpy brain were compared with those obtained from dysmyelination of (oligo‐TTK) transgenic mice, induced by oligodendrocyte killing, which have a mild astrocyte hypertrophy (Jalabi et al., 2005), and from recovering jimpy females, which have reduced astrocyte hypertrophy. The unique morphological feature of astrocytes in jimpy males coupled with an increase in the water channel protein aquaporin 4 (AQP4) was found to facilitate the directional water diffusion in the white matter. In addition to the major changes of DT‐MRI parameters in the two dysmyelinated mice caused by the myelin loss and axonal modifications, the amplified magnitude of radial and axial diffusions in jimpy males was attributed principally to the strongly pronounced astrocyte hypertrophy. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.