Developmental changes in the expression and localization of drebrin has been mainly analyzed in chick embryo and young rat by various anti-drebrin polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies. Immunoblot analysis demonstrated that the adult drebrin isoform (drebrin A) is restricted to neural tissues, while the embryonic drebrin isoforms (drebrin E1 and E2 in chicken and drebrin E in mammals) are found in a wide variety of tissues. In the developing brain, drebrin E (including chicken drebrin E2) is expressed in newly generated neurons. During neuronal migration, drebrin E is distributed ubiquitously within the neurons. Once drebrin A is expressed in the developing neuron, drebrin E is no longer present within the cell soma and accumulates in the growth cone of growing processes, resulting in the cessation of neuronal migration. The limited subcellular localization of drebrin A, which is possibly regulated by a drebrin A-specific mechanism, is likely to affect the localization of drebrin E. In the adult brain, drebrin is mainly localized in dendritic spines, but in some nuclei, drebrin can be detected in neuronal somata as well as dendritic spines. The fact that the developmental changes in drebrin expression highly correlate in time with the sensitive period of visual cortical plasticity in kittens suggests that synaptic plasticity depends on drebrin.
Keywords: Axonal growth cone; Cerebellum; Drebrin A-specific antibody; Image subtraction method; Immunohistochemistry; Isoform conversion; Monoclonal antibody; Neuronal migration; Optic tectum; Visual cortical plasticity.