Cocaine dynamically regulates heterochromatin and repetitive element unsilencing in nucleus accumbens.

ABSTRACT: Repeated cocaine exposure induces persistent alterations in genome-wide transcriptional regulatory networks, chromatin remodeling activity and, ultimately, gene expression profiles in the brain's reward circuitry. Virtually all previous investigations have centered on drug-mediated effects occurring throughout active euchromatic regions of the genome, with very little known concerning the impact of cocaine exposure on the regulation and maintenance of heterochromatin in adult brain. Here, we report that cocaine dramatically and dynamically alters heterochromatic histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation (H3K9me3) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a key brain reward region. Furthermore, we demonstrate that repeated cocaine exposure causes persistent decreases in heterochromatization in this brain re

SUBMITTER: Maze I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3041122 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature