Abstracts

Rationale: RE1-Silencer Transcription Factor (REST), also known as Neuron Restrictive Silencer Factor (NRSF), is a transcriptional repressor of neural genes. Some reports indicate that seizure activity in animal models induces overexpression of REST/NRSF. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the gene expression of REST/NRSF in hippocampus of patients with pharmacoresistant Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (MTLE).Methods: Samples from hippocampus were obtained from 28 patients with pharmacoresistant MTLE submitted to epilepsy surgery. Then, the mRNA was extracted with Trizol® reagent, according to manufacturer's protocol, and then repurified by affinity with magnetic beads (AgentCourt®). cDNA was synthesized with GoScript™ Reverse Transcriptase according to manufacturer´s protocol (Promega®). The real-time quantitative TaqMan PCR assay was performed using a LightCycler system (Roche®). Human hippocampal cDNA library (Invitrogen®) was used as control condition. The results obtained were correlated with clinical data (age of patient, age of illness initiation, seizure frequency, duration of epilepsy and pharmacological treatment).Results: REST/NRSF gene expression increased 1061% (p<0.05) when compared with the control condition. No significant correlations were detected between the REST/NRSF gene expression and the different clinical variables evaluated.Conclusions: Genes encoding for REST/NRSF are overexpressed in hippocampus of patients with pharmacoresistant MTLE. This finding can result in the repression of other genes and facilitation of seizure activity. Supported by CONACyT scholarship 377494