GSE133369
Hippocampal transcriptome analysis following maternal separation in a mouse model of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are common, seen in 1-5% of the population in the United States and Canada. Regrettably, children diagnosed with FASD are not likely to remain with their biological parents, facing early maternal separation and foster placements throughout childhood. We have modeled FASD in mice via prenatal alcohol exposure and further induce early life stress through maternal separation. We report an association between adult hippocampal gene expression and prenatal and postnatal treatment that is related to behavioral changes. Clustering of expression profiles through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identifies a set of transcripts associated with anxiety-like behavior as well as treatment group. Genes in this module are overrepresented by genes involved in transcriptional regulation and other pathways related to neurodevelopment. Interestingly, one member of this module, Polr2a, polymerase (RNA) II (DNA directed) polypeptide A, is downregulated by the combination of prenatal ethanol and postnatal stress in an RNA-Seq experiment and qPCR validation. Together, transcriptional control is implicated as a potential underlying mechanism leading to anxiety-like behavior via environmental insults. Greater understanding of the role of prenatal alcohol exposure and postnatal stress in altering the hippocampal transcriptome in the hippocampus is warranted. Further research is required to elucidate the mechanism involved and use this insight towards early diagnosis and amelioration strategies involving children born with FASD. Overall design: Hippocampal RNA profiles of adult mice that had been prenatally exposed to alcohol and/or postnatal maternal separation stress as well as non-exposed controls were generated by sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq.