title: Characterization of social behaviors in caspase-3 deficient mice.
abstract: Impaired social interaction is a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder, a neurodevelopmental disorder that shows a strong male preponderance in prevalence. Studies have identified neural circuits, neuromodulators and genetic factors involved in social behaviors, but mechanistic understanding of gender-specific social deficits is lacking. We report that deletion of the caspase-3 gene, encoding a protease with functions in apoptosis and neural plasticity, alters specific social behaviors in male mice, while leaving females unaffected. Casp3(-/-) mice showed normal behavioral responses to olfactory cues from food, neutral chemical and biological sources. Both Casp3(-/-) males and females displayed robust social exploration, sociability, recognition and preference for an enclosed novel mouse in the three-chamber test. However, Casp3(-/-) males showed significantly reduced social interaction behaviors when exposed to a freely moving novel mouse, including decreased interaction time and diminished mounting. Thus caspase-3 is essential for a subset of social behaviors, but despite similar hyper-locomotion in both sexes, only male Casp3(-/-) mice exhibited social interaction deficits, which is interesting given the male bias of autism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Shih-Ching
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Lo
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Scearce-Levie
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Morgan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sheng
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D053148:Caspase 3 / Q000235:genetics*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008124:Locomotion / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout
chemical_list: C505409:Casp3 protein, mouse; D053148:Caspase 3