Dataset Information

On the discovery of ADRAM, an experience-dependent long noncoding RNA that drives fear extinction though direct interaction with the chaperone protein 14-3-3

ABSTRACT: Long-noncoding RNA (lncRNA) comprise a new class of genes that have been assigned key roles in development and disease. Many lncRNAs are specifically transcribed in the brain where they regulate the expression of protein-coding genes that underpin neuronal function; however, their role in learning and memory remains largely unexplored. We used RNA Capture-Seq to identify a large population of lncRNAs that are expressed in the infralimbic cortex of adult male mice in response to fear-related learning, with 14.5% of these annotated in the GENCODE database as lncRNAs with no known function. We combined these data with cell-type-specific ATAC-seq on neurons that had been selectively activated by fear-extinction learning, and discovered 434 lncRNAs derived from enhancer regions in the vicinity of protein-coding genes. We found a novel experience-induced lncRNA called ADRAM that acts as both a scaffold and a combinatorial guide to recruit the brain-enriched chaperone protein 14-3-3 to the promoter of the memory-associated immediate early gene Nr4a2. This leads to the expulsion of histone deactylases 3 and 4, and the recruitment of the histone acetyltransferase creb binding protein, which drives learning-induced Nr4a2 expression. Knockdown of ADRAM disrupts this interaction, blocks the expression of Nr4a2, and ultimately impairs the formation of fear-extinction memory. This study expands the lexicon of experience-dependent lncRNA activity in the brain, highlights enhancer-derived RNAs (eRNAs) as key players in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression associated with fear extinction, and suggests eRNAs, such as ADRAM, may constitute viable targets in developing novel treatments for fear-related anxiety disorders.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE181706 | GEO | 2021/12/31

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Extinction learning refers to the phenomenon that a previously learned response to an environmental stimulus, for example the expression of an aversive behavior upon exposure to a specific context, is reduced when the stimulus is repeatedly presented in the absence of a previously paired aversive event. Extinction of fear memories has been implicated with the treatment of anxiety disease but the molecular processes that underlie fear extinctionare only beginning to emerge. Here we show that fear extinction initiates up-regulation of hippocampal insulin-growth factor 2 (Igf2) and down-regulation of insulin-growth factor binding protein 7 (Igfbp7). In line with this observation we demonstrate that IGF2 facilitates fear extinction, while IGFBP7 impairs fear extinction in an IGF2-dependent manner. Furthermore, we identify one cellular substrate of altered IGF2-signaling during fear extinction. To this end we show that fear extinction-induced IGF2/IGFBP7-signaling promotes the survival of 17-19 day-old newborn hippocampal neurons. In conclusion, our data suggests that therapeutic strategies that enhance IGF2-signaling and adult neurogenesis might be suitable to treat disease linked to excessive fear memory. We employed mice to investigate fear extinction in the hippocampus-dependent contextual fear conditioning paradigm. To this end, male C57BL/6J mice were exposed to the fear conditioning box (context) followed by an electric foot-shock which elicits the acquisition of conditioned contextual fear. For extinction training animals were repeatedly reexposed to the conditioned context on consecutive days (24h interval) without receiving the footshockagain (extinction trial, E). This procedure eventually results in the decline of the aversive freezing behavior. Mice that were exposed to the conditioning context without receiving fear conditioning training served as control groups. To gain a better understanding of the molecular processes underlying fear extinction we performed a genome-wide analysis of the hippocampal transcriptome during fear extinction. In the employed paradigm fear extinction is a gradual process. To capture the longitudinal course of fear extinction we decided to perform hippocampal microarray analysis at two time points: (1) After the first extinction trial (E1) when animals display high levels of aversive freezing behavior and (2) at the extinction trial on which the freezing behavior was significantly reduced when compared to E1. This extinction trial, in the case of this experiment E5, we termed “extinction trial low freezing” (ELF). Mice that were exposed to the conditioning context without receiving fear conditioning training served as control groups (3). For all three groups we hybridized 5 samples (biological replicates).

Dataset Information

On the discovery of ADRAM, an experience-dependent long noncoding RNA that drives fear extinction though direct interaction with the chaperone protein 14-3-3

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure