We next examined the total expression level of a number of synaptic proteins in NexCnih2−/− mice. Importantly, no CNIH-2 protein was detected in hippocampal lysates confirming that CNIIH-2 is absent in the hippocampus of these mice (Figures 5D–E). We found that GluA1 and GluA2 were reduced by about 15%, but no change was observed for γ-8, PSD-95 or the NMDAR subunit GluN2A (Figure 5D). Infection of dissociated hippocampal neurons with the CNIH-2 shRNA also produced little effect on total GluA1/A2 expression levels (Figure S4A). We then compared the consequences of deleting CNIH-2 to γ-8 deletion (Figure 5E). Total expression of GluA1 and GluA2 are more severely reduced in γ-8 KO mice than in NexCnih2−/− mice and, unlike the lack of change in γ-8 levels in NexCnih2−/− mice, total CNIH-2 expression is markedly reduced in γ-8 KO mice, as reported previously (Kato et al., 2010a).
