The expression and turnover of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were studied in astroglial primary cultures during postnatal proliferation and maturation. 1. Immunocytochemical studies demonstrated that in immature proliferating astrocytes, GFAP was expressed as a filamentous organized crown around the nucleus whereas in the maturating cells, a GFAP labelled network began to radiate throughout the cytoplasm and GFAP was highly expressed in the astroglial processes. 2. GFAP turnover was studied at 3 periods of culture. The decay of radioactivity from prelabelled GFAP was followed from day 4-12 (immature stage), 11-19 (maturing stage) and 21-29 (morphologically differentiated stage). GFAP displayed a biphasic decay kinetic at each considered period. Two pools of GFAP distinctly appeared. The first one was a fast decaying pool with a half life of 16-18 h and of 5-6 days for the stable one. The unstable pool decreased from 70% to 30% of the total incorporated radioactivity from the proliferating stage to the most mature stage, whereas the stable pool increased proportionally. © 1990.
