Neuronal localization of GAS7 within human brain tissue: Implications for schizophrenia research

In view of recent data on the linkage of Gas7 protein to schizophrenia, and in view of its role in neurite outgrowth, histochemical localization of the Gas7 protein was studied in normal human brain tissue using an online tissue atlas. Selective localization to neurons in the cerebral cortex was found with moderate levels in the hippocampus and caudate, but fairly low levels were noted within the human cerebellum and was limited to small granule cells as well as the neuropil of the cerebellar molecular layers. Despite this low intensity histochemical localization in the cerebellum, molecular data indicate a substantially large number of RNA transcripts in the cerebellum that exceeded the cerebral cortex as determined by sequencing studies.