Project description:Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a chronic, relapsing syndrome diagnosed by a heterogeneous set of behavioral signs and symptoms. There are no laboratory tests that provide direct objective evidence for diagnosis. Microarray and RNA-Seq technologies enable genome-wide transcriptome profiling at low costs and provide an opportunity to identify biomarkers to facilitate diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of patients. Brain gene expression patterns can discriminate alcohol-dependent and non-dependent people and predict drugs that reduce drinking in rodents. However, access to brain tissue in living patients is not possible. Blood contains cellular and extracellular RNAs that provide disease-relevant information for some brain diseases. We hypothesized that blood gene expression profiles can be used to diagnose AUD. We profiled brain (prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hypothalamus) and blood gene expression levels in C57BL/6J mice using RNA-seq one week after chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) exposure, a mouse model of alcohol dependence. To determine the preservation of gene expression levels between blood and brain, we calculated the Spearman correlation coefficient between blood and brain mean gene expression levels across all subjects and found a high degree of preservation (rho range: [0.50, 0.67]) with hundreds of transcripts in blood correlated with their brain transcript levels. To determine whether the transcriptional response to alcohol dependence was similar in blood and brain, we studied the overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and gene coexpression networks. Although there was small overlap between blood and brain DEGs, there was considerable overlap of gene networks perturbed after CIE related to cell-cell signaling (e.g., GABA and glutamate receptor signaling, endocannabinoid signaling, synaptogenesis), immune responses (e.g., antigen presentation, communication between innate and adaptive immune systems), and protein processing / mitochondrial functioning (e.g., ubiquitination, unfolded protein responses, oxidative phosphorylation). To determine whether blood gene expression can predict alcohol dependence status, blood gene expression data were used to train classifiers (logistic regression, random forest, and partial least squares discriminant analysis), which were highly accurate at predicting alcohol dependence status (maximum AUC for females: 90.1%; males: 80.5%). These results suggest that gene expression profiles from peripheral blood samples contain a biological signature of alcohol dependence that can discriminate between alcohol-dependent and non-dependent subjects.
Project description:Purpose: Alcohol abuse induces changes in microglia morphology and immune function, but whether microglia initiate or simply amplify the harmful effects of alcohol exposure is still a matter of debate. Here we determined microglia function in acute and voluntary drinking behaviors using a colony stimulating factor 1 receptor inhibitor (PLX5622) and 3’UTR biased-sequencing. Therefore, The purpose of this study was to provide insight regarding microglia depletion and voluntary alcohol consumption. Methods: We performed 3’UTR biased transcriptome sequencing (3’Tag-seq) on total homogenate isolated from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of C57BL6/J mice following microglia depletion and chronic every-other-day alcohol consumption. Results: Differential expression analysis and WGCNA network analysis revealed that although many immune genes have been implicated in alcohol abuse, downregulation of microglia genes does not necessitate changes in alcohol intake. Finally, we show that microglia depletion and chronic alcohol result in compensatory upregulation of ethanol-responsive, reactive astrocyte genes, indicating astrocytes may play a critical role in regulation of these alcohol behaviors. Conclusion:Taken together our behavioral and transcriptional data indicate that microglia are not the primary effector cell responsible for regulation of acute and voluntary alcohol behaviors. In addition, our data represents a novel resource for groups interested in transcriptional effects of microglia depletion after alcohol consumption.
Project description:We investigated the molecular mechanisms of chronic alcohol consumption or lipopolysaccharide insult by gene expression profiling in prefrontal cortex and liver of C57BL/6J mice. We identified similar patterns of transcriptional changes in brain and liver among three different alcohol consumption tests and lipopolysaccharide injection. We also demonstrated distinct genomic consequences of different types of alcohol consumption. The microarray experiment was performed to compare gene expression changes induced by three separate paradigms of alcohol consumption and immune activation by lipopolysaccharide injection. The three tests of alcohol consumption were the continuous chronic two bottle choice (Chronic), two bottle choice available every other day (Chronic Intermittent) and limited access to one bottle of ethanol (Drinking in the Dark). All alcohol studies utilized 20% ethanol and each treatment group had it's own control group which received only water. The immune activation test consisted of 2 lipopolysaccharide injections (1 mg/kg i.p.) spaced one week apart, with animals being sacrificed one week after the last injection. Control animals received saline injections. All studies used female, adult mice.
Project description:We employed a paradigm of chronic moderate alcohol intake from adolescence-to-adulthood in mice, and analyzed the alcohol effect on both behavioral and hypothalamic gene expression changes. We employed a paradigm of chronic moderate alcohol intake from adolescence-to-adulthood in mice. Before chronic alcohol drinking began, mice (3 weeks old) were allowed to adapt to drinking tubes with both tubes containing water from experimental day 1-5. After adaptation period, mice were randomly aside to 5% alcohol group, 10% alcohol group or water-only control group (n=16-18). Chronic alcohol drinking lasted to day 57 of the experiment without any change and interruption. Then each mouse is sacrificed by decapitation, and the hypothalamus was dissected for rapid freeze and storage at -80 M-BM-:C. Hypothalamus tissue samples were used for total RNA extraction. RNA samples were pooled for microarray. For water-only group, nine mice were used to make three pools, with three equal amounts of RNA samples per pool. For alcohol group, nineteen mice were used to make nine pools, with one to three equal RNA samples per pool.
Project description:Repeated excessive alcohol consumption is a risk factor for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Although AUD has been more common in men than women, women develop more severe behavioral and physical impairments. However, relatively few new therapeutics targeting development of AUD have been validated. Here, to gain a better understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying alcohol intake, we conducted a genome-wide RNA-sequencing analysis in female mice exposed to different modes (acute vs chronic) of ethanol drinking. We focused on transcriptional profiles in amygdala including the central and basolateral subnuclei, brain areas previously implicated in alcohol drinking and seeking. We found distinct gene expression patterns and canonical pathways induced by both acute and chronic intake. Surprisingly, both drinking modes triggered similar transcriptional changes, including up-regulation of ribosome-related/translational pathways and myelination pathways, and down-regulation of chromatin binding and histone modification. Notably, multiple genes that were significantly altered with alcohol drinking, including Atp2b1, Hspa4, Slc4a7, Sbno1, Ubxn2b, Nfkb1, Nts, and Hdac2, had previously been associated with human AUD via GWAS or other genomic studies. In addition, subsequent analyses of hub genes and upstream regulatory pathways predicted that voluntary ethanol consumption affects epigenetic changes via histone deacetylation pathways, oligodendrocyte and myelin function, and the oligodendrocyte-related transcription factor, Sox17. Overall, our results suggest that the expression of oligodendrocyte-related genes in the central and basolateral subnuclei of the amygdala is sensitive to voluntary alcohol drinking. These findings suggest potential molecular targets for future therapeutic approaches to prevent the development of AUD, particularly in women, due to repeated excessive alcohol consumption
Project description:Chronic alcohol abuse has a detrimental effect on the brain and liver. There is no effective treatment for these patients and the mechanism underlying alcohol addiction and consequent alcohol-induced damage of the liver/brain axis remains unresolved. We compared experimental models of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and alcohol dependence in mice and demonstrated that genetic ablation of IL17 Receptor A (IL17ra-/-), or pharmacological blockade of IL17 signaling effectively suppressed the increased voluntary alcohol drinking in alcohol-dependent mice, and blocked alcohol-induced hepatocellular and neurological damage. The level of circulating IL17A positively correlated with the alcohol use in excessive drinkers, and was further increased in patients with ALD as compared to healthy individuals. Our data suggest that IL17A is a common mediator of excessive alcohol consumption and alcohol-induced liver/brain injury, and targeting IL17A may provide a novel strategy for treatment of alcohol-induced pathology.
Project description:Chronic and excessive binge-like drinking is a risk factor to pathological cognitive decline and dementia, but the mechanism underlying the prolonged and lasting effect of alcohol even in abstainers remains elusive. This study investigates how ethyl alcohol directly results in metabolic reprograming and persistent physiological changes in brain cells that underlies such effect.
Project description:Chronic alcohol exposure can cause myocardial degenerative diseases, manifested as cardiac insufficiency, arrhythmia, etc. These are defined as alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM). Alcohol-mediated myocardial injury has previously been studied through metabolomics, and it has been proved to be involved in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway related to the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids and oxidative phosphorylation, which tentatively explored the mechanism of ACM induced by chronic drinking. To further study the myocardial damage caused by alcohol, the mouse model of ACM successfully established previously was used to perform proteomics analysis on myocardial specimens. Fifty-six differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified, and they are involved in the KEGG pathway related to fatty acid biosynthesis, lipid metabolism, oxidative stress, and the development of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The present study further demonstrated the underlying causes of myocardial damage caused by chronic alcohol consumption and lays the foundation for further research to clarify the underlying mechanism of ACM.
Project description:We conducted a high-throughput sequencing study to measure whole brain miRNA expression levels in alcohol naïve animals in the LXS panel of recombinant inbred (RI) mouse strains. We then combined the sequencing data with genotype data, microarray gene expression data, and data on alcohol-related behavioral phenotypes such as 'Drinking in the dark', 'Sleep time', and 'Low dose activation' from the same RI panel.
Project description:The objective of this study was to determine common innate differences in gene expression in the nucleus accumbens shell among the selectively bred (a) alcohol-preferring (P) vs. alcohol-non-preferring (NP) rats: (b) high-alcohol-drinking (HAD) vs. low-alcohol-drinking (LAD) rats (both replicates); (c) ALKO alcohol (AA) vs. nonalcohol (ANA) rats; and (d) Sardinian alcohol-preferring (sP) vs. alcohol-nonpreferring (sNP) rats.