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.