Prenatal VPA exposure alters postnatal histone 3 acetylation levels

SEIFFE A; KAZLAUSKAS N; DEPINO AM

Congreso; 2nd FALAN Congress; 2016

FALAN

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by reduced sociability, diminished communicative skills andrepetitive behaviors. Notably, the proportion between boys and girls diagnosed with ASD is 4:1 approximately.This suggests a bigger susceptibility in boys to develop this disorder, or a major resilience in girls. To identify thebiological mechanisms acting in female animals that could underlie this bias, we used a mouse model of ASD:the prenatal exposure to valproic acid (VPA). Recently, we have observed that this model also presents a differentphenotype in males and females, as females do not show the reduction in sociability observed in adult males.Previous results of our group indicate that prenatal exposure to VPA leads to alterations in microglia and astrocytes in female pups. Considering VPA functions as a histone deacetylase inhibitor, we analyzed histone acetylation as a possible epigenetic mechanism underlying the observed alterations in glial cell density and found a decrease in histone 3 acetylation in the cerebellum of female VPA pups at postnatal day (P) 14. The aim of this work is to study the differences in histone acetylation between female and male pups at P 14. To this aim, we extracted histone-enriched nuclear protein at P 14 from male and female pups. We hope that this study will help us identify a possible molecular mechanism underlying the effects of prenatal VPA exposure on glial cell density and/or behavior.