title: Detection of histone acetylation levels in the dorsal hippocampus reveals early tagging on specific residues of H2B and H4 histones in response to learning.
abstract: The recent literature provides evidence that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification are crucial to gene transcription linked to synaptic plasticity in the mammalian brain--notably in the hippocampus--and memory formation. We measured global histone acetylation levels in the rat hippocampus at an early stage of spatial or fear memory formation. We found that H3, H4 and H2B underwent differential acetylation at specific sites depending on whether rats had been exposed to the context of a task without having to learn or had to learn about a place or fear therein: H3K9K14 acetylation was mostly responsive to any experimental conditions compared to naive animals, whereas H2B N-terminus and H4K12 acetylations were mostly associated with memory for either spatial or fear learning. Altogether, these data suggest that behavior/experience-dependent changes differently regulate specific acetylation modifications of histones in the hippocampus, depending on whether a memory trace is established or not: tagging of H3K9K14 could be associated with perception/processing of testing-related manipulations and context, thereby enhancing chromatin accessibility, while tagging of H2B N-terminus tail and H4K12 could be more closely associated with the formation of memories requiring an engagement of the hippocampus.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Adaptatives, UMR7364, Université de Strasbourg-CNRS, GDR CNRS 2905, Faculté de Psychologie, Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bousiges
authors.forename: Romain
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Neidl
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Majchrzak
authors.forename: Marc-Antoine
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Muller
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barbelivien
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pereira de Vasconcelos
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Loeffler
authors.forename: Jean-Christophe
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Cassel
authors.forename: Anne-Laurence
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Boutillier
mesh_terms: D000107:Acetylation; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism*; D006657:Histones / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D006657:Histones