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Cwerman-Thibault H, Malko-Baverel V, Le Guilloux G, Ratcliffe E, Mouri D, Torres-Cuevas I, Millán I, Saubaméa B, Mignon V, Boespflug-Tanguy O, Gressens P, Corral-Debrinski M. Neuroglobin overexpression in cerebellar neurons of Harlequin mice improves mitochondrial homeostasis and reduces ataxic behavior. Mol Ther 2024; 32:2150-2175. [PMID: 38796706 PMCID: PMC11286817 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.05.030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2023] [Revised: 03/22/2024] [Accepted: 05/23/2024] [Indexed: 05/28/2024] Open
Abstract
Neuroglobin, a member of the globin superfamily, is abundant in the brain, retina, and cerebellum of mammals and localizes to mitochondria. The protein exhibits neuroprotective capacities by participating in electron transfer, oxygen supply, and protecting against oxidative stress. Our objective was to determine whether neuroglobin overexpression can be used to treat neurological disorders. We chose Harlequin mice, which harbor a retroviral insertion in the first intron of the apoptosis-inducing factor gene resulting in the depletion of the corresponding protein essential for mitochondrial biogenesis. Consequently, Harlequin mice display degeneration of the cerebellum and suffer from progressive blindness and ataxia. Cerebellar ataxia begins in Harlequin mice at the age of 4 months and is characterized by neuronal cell disappearance, bioenergetics failure, and motor and cognitive impairments, which aggravated with aging. Mice aged 2 months received adeno-associated viral vectors harboring the coding sequence of neuroglobin or apoptosis-inducing factor in both cerebellar hemispheres. Six months later, Harlequin mice exhibited substantial improvements in motor and cognitive skills; probably linked to the preservation of respiratory chain function, Purkinje cell numbers and connectivity. Thus, without sharing functional properties with apoptosis-inducing factor, neuroglobin was efficient in reducing ataxia in Harlequin mice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hélène Cwerman-Thibault
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Vassilissa Malko-Baverel
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Gwendoline Le Guilloux
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Edward Ratcliffe
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Djmila Mouri
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Isabel Torres-Cuevas
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France; Neonatal Research Group, Health Research Institute La Fe, 46026 Valencia, Spain
| | - Ivan Millán
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France; Neonatal Research Group, Health Research Institute La Fe, 46026 Valencia, Spain; Laboratory of Comparative Neurobiology, Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Bruno Saubaméa
- Université Paris Cité, Platform of Cellular and Molecular Imaging (PICMO), US25 Inserm, UAR3612 CNRS, 75006 Paris, France; Université Paris Cité, Optimisation Thérapeutique en Neuropsychopharmacologie, UMR-S 1144 Inserm, 75006 Paris, France
| | - Virginie Mignon
- Université Paris Cité, Platform of Cellular and Molecular Imaging (PICMO), US25 Inserm, UAR3612 CNRS, 75006 Paris, France
| | - Odile Boespflug-Tanguy
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France; Service de Neurologie et Maladies métaboliques, CHU Paris - Hôpital Robert Debré, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Pierre Gressens
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France
| | - Marisol Corral-Debrinski
- Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Maladies neurodéveloppementales et neurovasculaires, F-75019 Paris, France.
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Abstract
Until recently laboratory tasks for studying behavior were highly artificial, simplified, and designed without consideration for the environmental or social context. Although such an approach offers good control over behavior, it does not allow for researching either voluntary responses or individual differences. Importantly for neuroscience studies, the activity of the neural circuits involved in producing unnatural, artificial behavior is variable and hard to predict. In addition, different ensembles may be activated depending on the strategy the animal adopts to deal with the spurious problem. Thus, artificial and simplified tasks based on responses, which do not occur spontaneously entail problems with modeling behavioral impairments and underlying brain deficits. To develop valid models of human disorders we need to test spontaneous behaviors consistently engaging well-defined, evolutionarily conserved neuronal circuits. Such research focuses on behavioral patterns relevant for surviving and thriving under varying environmental conditions, which also enable high reproducibility across different testing settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alicja Puścian
- Nencki-EMBL Partnership for Neural Plasticity and Brain Disorders – BRAINCITY, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Pasteur 3 Street, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Ewelina Knapska
- Nencki-EMBL Partnership for Neural Plasticity and Brain Disorders – BRAINCITY, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Pasteur 3 Street, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
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Marchisella F, Creutzberg KC, Begni V, Sanson A, Wearick-Silva LE, Tractenberg SG, Orso R, Kestering-Ferreira É, Grassi-Oliveira R, Riva MA. Exposure to Prenatal Stress Is Associated With an Excitatory/Inhibitory Imbalance in Rat Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala and an Increased Risk for Emotional Dysregulation. Front Cell Dev Biol 2021; 9:653384. [PMID: 34141707 PMCID: PMC8204112 DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2021.653384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2021] [Accepted: 04/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Epidemiological studies have shown that environmental insults and maternal stress during pregnancy increase the risk of several psychiatric disorders in the offspring. Converging lines of evidence from humans, as well as from rodent models, suggest that prenatal stress (PNS) interferes with fetal development, ultimately determining changes in brain maturation and function that may lead to the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders. From a molecular standpoint, transcriptional alterations are thought to play a major role in this context and may contribute to the behavioral phenotype by shifting the expression of genes related to excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) transmission balance. Nevertheless, the exact neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the enhanced vulnerability to psychopathology following PNS exposure are not well understood. In the present study, we used a model of maternal stress in rats to investigate the distal effects of PNS on the expression of genes related to glutamatergic and GABAergic neurotransmissions. We inspected two critical brain regions involved in emotion regulation, namely, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala (AMY), which we show to relate with the mild behavioral effects detected in adult rat offspring. We observed that PNS exposure promotes E/I imbalance in the PFC of adult males only, by dysregulating the expression of glutamatergic-related genes. Moreover, such an effect is accompanied by increased expression of the activity-dependent synaptic modulator gene Npas4 specifically in the PFC parvalbumin (PV)-positive interneurons, suggesting an altered regulation of synapse formation promoting higher PV-dependent inhibitory transmission and increased overall circuit inhibition in the PFC of males. In the AMY, PNS more evidently affects the transcription of GABAergic-related genes, shifting the balance toward inhibition. Collectively, our findings suggest that the E/I dysregulation of the PFC-to-AMY transmission may be a long-term signature of PNS and may contribute to increase the risk for mood disorder upon further stress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Marchisella
- Laboratory of Psychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Kerstin Camile Creutzberg
- Laboratory of Psychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Veronica Begni
- Laboratory of Psychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Alice Sanson
- Laboratory of Psychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
| | - Luis Eduardo Wearick-Silva
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Brain Institute, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
| | - Saulo Gantes Tractenberg
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Brain Institute, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
| | - Rodrigo Orso
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Brain Institute, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
| | - Érika Kestering-Ferreira
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Brain Institute, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
| | - Rodrigo Grassi-Oliveira
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Brain Institute, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.,Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Marco Andrea Riva
- Laboratory of Psychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.,Biological Psychiatry Unit, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli Brescia, Brescia, Italy
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Zeiss CJ. Utility of spontaneous animal models of Alzheimer’s disease in preclinical efficacy studies. Cell Tissue Res 2020; 380:273-286. [DOI: 10.1007/s00441-020-03198-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2019] [Accepted: 03/03/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
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Witt NA, Lee B, Ghent K, Zhang WQ, Pehrson AL, Sánchez C, Gould GG. Vortioxetine Reduces Marble Burying but Only Transiently Enhances Social Interaction Preference in Adult Male BTBR T +Itpr3 tf/J Mice. ACS Chem Neurosci 2019; 10:4319-4327. [PMID: 31468969 DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.9b00386] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Vortioxetine is a multimodal antidepressant with agonist activity at serotonin (5-HT)1A and 5-HT1B receptors that blocks the 5-HT transporter (SERT). Previously in male BTBR T+Itpr3tf/J (BTBR) mice, the 5-HT1A partial agonist buspirone and SERT blocker fluoxetine enhanced social interaction but did not reduce marble burying. We hypothesized that vortioxetine through its actions at SERT and 5-HT1A could improve BTBR sociability and via 5-HT1B could reduce burying better than sertraline, a selective SERT blocker. Vortioxetine (5-10 mg/kg) or sertraline (2 mg/kg) was administered 30 min presociability and 75 min prior to marble burying tests. Vortioxetine (10 mg/kg) occupancy (%) was 84 ± 1 for SERT, 31 ± 12 for 5-HT1A, and 80 ± 5 for 5-HT1B in brain at 110 min postinjection, and serum oxytocin was 24% lower (p < 0.01) in vortioxetine-treated mice. Vortioxetine reduced novel object investigation, whereas sertraline enhanced overall sociability. However, the vortioxetine-induced increase in social sniffing was transient, as it was lost with 60-120 min presociability test delays in subsequent experiments. Vortioxetine and sertraline both reduced BTBR marble burying. Based on vortioxetine occupancy, actions at SERT and/or 5-HT1B are more likely to underlie its behavioral effects than 5-HT1A. Overall, vortioxetine has great potential for suppressing restrictive-repetitive behaviors, but it appears less promising as a sociability enhancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nasriya A. Witt
- Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78229, United States
- University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, United States
| | - Benita Lee
- Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78229, United States
- University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78705, United States
| | - Kaylee Ghent
- Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78229, United States
- Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas 78212, United States
| | - Wynne Q. Zhang
- Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78229, United States
- Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, United States
| | - Alan L. Pehrson
- Department of Psychology, Monclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey 07043, United States
| | - Connie Sánchez
- Institute of Clinical Medicine, Translational Neuropsychiatry, University of Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark 8240
| | - Georgianna G. Gould
- Center for Biomedical Neuroscience, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78229, United States
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Machado Figueiredo R, de Carvalho MC, Brandão ML, Lovick TA. Short-term, low-dose fluoxetine prevents oestrous cycle-linked increase in anxiety-like behaviour in female rats. J Psychopharmacol 2019; 33:548-557. [PMID: 31012390 DOI: 10.1177/0269881119841833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS We sought a robust behavioural test that evoked increased anxiety-like behaviour during the late dioestrus phase of the oestrous cycle (similar to the premenstrual period in women) and tested whether this could be prevented by acute low-dose fluoxetine (FLX). METHODS Female Wistar rats in different stages of their cycle were exposed to four different tests of anxiety-like behaviour. RESULTS No oestrous cycle differences were detected in fear potentiated startle or conditioned freezing to an aversive context. In a light switch-off test where rats move from one compartment of a shuttle-box to the other to turn off an aversive light, females displayed enhanced responding in late dioestrus. During isolation restraint stress females in late dioestrus emitted three times more 22 kHz ultrasound vocalisations (USV) than at other cycle stages. Using the USV test, short-term administration of low-dose FLX (1.75 mg kg-1, i.p.) designed to blunt the sharp fall in brain allopregnanolone concentration during late dioestrus but without affecting 5-HT systems, prevented the increase in isolation stress-evoked USVs. CONCLUSIONS The light switch-off and isolation restraint-induced USV tests evoke unconditioned adverse emotional responses that are ethologically relevant and sensitive to oestrous cycle stage. The USV test fulfils many criteria required of a model for premenstrual syndrome in women. Using the USV test, short-term administration of FLX to increase brain allopregnanolone concentration without affecting 5-HT systems prevented the increased USV responding in late dioestrus. Short-term low-dose FLX treatment may have potential to alleviate development of adverse premenstrual symptoms in women.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rebeca Machado Figueiredo
- 1 Laboratório de Neuropsicofarmacologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo, Campus USP, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.,2 Instituto de Neurociências e Comportamento, Avenida do Café 2450, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Milene Cristina de Carvalho
- 1 Laboratório de Neuropsicofarmacologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo, Campus USP, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.,2 Instituto de Neurociências e Comportamento, Avenida do Café 2450, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Marcus Lira Brandão
- 1 Laboratório de Neuropsicofarmacologia, FFCLRP, Universidade de São Paulo, Campus USP, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.,2 Instituto de Neurociências e Comportamento, Avenida do Café 2450, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil
| | - Thelma Anderson Lovick
- 2 Instituto de Neurociências e Comportamento, Avenida do Café 2450, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.,3 School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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