Experimental Design
Prior to any procedures, animals were habituated and baseline tested in
the Stepping, Whisker and Corridor Tests before being randomly allocated
to treatment groups. Rats then received unilateral intra-nigral
injections of AAV vector expressing the human α-synuclein transgene (or
a control AAV vector expressing GFP) followed 4 weeks later by
intra-striatal injection of FN075 (or its vehicle as a control) to yield
4 final groups (Table 1). Animals were tested for motor defects in the
Stepping, Whisker and Corridor Tests prior to AAV surgery as well as
every 4 weeks post-AAV surgery. Animal sacrifice was carried out by
transcardial perfusion-fixation under terminal pentobarbital anaesthesia
for immunohistochemical analyses at 20 weeks post-AAV surgery.
Table 1. Groups used in this study to determine the effects of
sequential intra-nigral administration of AAV-a-synuclein and
intra-striatal FN075. After behavioural baselines were established,
rats were randomly divided into 2 groups for intra-nigral infusion of
AAV-a-synuclein or AAV-GFP. Four weeks later, they were randomly
subdivided for intra-striatal infusion of FN075 or vehicle to yield 4
final groups.