Figure 4

Functional evaluation of NLSCt-Cu/Zn SOD injected animals. At 24, 48 and 72 hours post-lesion, animals were subjected to several neurological tests including: the estimation of coordination skills by measuring the total climbing time until falling when placed on an inclinated grid (A); spontaneous turning behaviour in an open field (total turns recorded in 1.5 min.)(B); and spontaneous motor activity (C). Percentage of body weight increase was also followed (D). Lesioned animals injected with saline (NMDA+saline) showed a significant decrease in the time spent climbing on the inclinated grid in comparison to non-lesioned saline injected animals (Non lesioned)(A). Interestingly, only animals injected with the NLSCt vector carrying the Cu/Zn SOD transgene (NMDA+SOD) displayed a significant recovery in the time spent on the inclinated grid when compared to NMDA+saline animals (#p < 0.05). Animals injected with NMDA+saline or NMDA plus NLSCt vector carrying the EGFP transgene (NMDA+GFP) showed a significant increase in net turns compared to saline injected animals (*p < 0.05). In addition, only animals overexpressing Cu/Zn SOD showed a turning behaviour indistinguishable from non-lesioned control saline injected rats and significantly different from NMDA+saline (#p < 0.05) or NMDA+GFP injected animals (&p < 0,05)(B). There were no differences in the open field general motor activity of all experimental groups (C). Body weight of both NMDA+saline and NMDA+GFP injected animals showed a significant decrease in the developmentally physiological body weight increase in relation to saline injected animals (*p < 0.05). Overexpression of Cu/Zn SOD hindered this decrease and these animals showed an increase in body weight indistinguishable from control non-lesioned saline injected rats.