title: Gene expression profiling of midbrain dopamine neurons upon gestational nicotine exposure.
abstract: Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with low birth weight, increased risk of stillbirth, conduct disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and neurocognitive deficits. Ventral tegmental area dopamine (DA) neurons in the mesocorticolimbic pathway were suggested to play a critical role in these pathological mechanisms induced by nicotine. Nicotine-mediated changes in genetic expression during pregnancy are of great interest for current researchers. We used patch clamp methods to identify and harvest DA and non-DA neurons separately and assayed them using oligonucleotide arrays to elucidate the alterations in gene expressions in these cells upon gestational nicotine exposure. Microarray analysis identified a set of 135 genes as significantly differentially expressed between DA and non-DA neurons. Some of the genes were found to be related to neurological disease pathways, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. Significantly up-/down-regulated genes found in DA neurons were mostly related to G-protein-coupled protein receptor signaling and developmental processes. These alterations in gene expressions may explain, partially at least, the possible pathological mechanisms for the diseases induced by maternal smoking.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, SERC Building, 3605 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.
authors.forename: Pınar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kanlikilicer
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, SERC Building, 3605 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.
authors.forename: Die
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, SERC Building, 3605 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.
authors.forename: Andrei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dragomir
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, SERC Building, 3605 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.
authors.forename: Yasemin M
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Akay
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Houston, SERC Building, 3605 Cullen Blvd, Houston, TX, 77204, USA. makay@uh.edu.
authors.forename: Metin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Akay
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000187:drug effects; D000818:Animals; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D059290:Dopaminergic Neurons / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism*; D015536:Down-Regulation / Q000187:drug effects; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D063990:Gene Ontology; D008636:Mesencephalon / Q000166:cytology*; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D009538:Nicotine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D015854:Up-Regulation / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D009538:Nicotine
keywords: Dopamine; Gestational nicotine; Microarray; Neurological diseases; VTA