Heterozygous Che-1 KO mice is deficient in memory persistence.

ZALCMAN, GISELA; MATTEI, ELISABETTA; CORBI, NICLOLETTA; FEDERMAN, NOEL; DI CERTO, MARIA GRAZIA; ROMANO, ARTURO

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 31 p. 169 - 174

0304-3940

Transcriptional regulation is a key process in the formation of long-term memories. Che-1 is a protein involved in the regulation of gene transcription that has recently been proved to bind the transcription factor NF-B, which is known to be involved in many memory-related molecular events. This evidence prompted us to investigate the putative role of Che-1 in memory processes. For this study we newly generated a line of Che-1+/- heterozygous mice. Che-1 homozygous KO mouse is lethal during development, but Che-1+/- heterozygous mouse is normal in its general anatomical and physiological characteristics. We analyzed the behavioral characteristic and memory performance of Che-1+/- mice in two NF-B dependent types of memory. We found that Che-1+/- mice show similar locomotor activity and thigmotactic behavior than wild type (WT) mice in an open field. In a similar way, no differences were found in anxiety-like behavior between Che-1+/- and WT mice in an elevated plus maze as well as in fear response in a contextual fear conditioning (CFC) and object exploration in a novel object recognition (NOR) task. No differences were found between WT and Che-1+/- mice performance in CFC training and when tested at 24 hours or 7 days after training. Similar performance was found between groups in NOR task, both in training and 24h testing performance. However, we found that object recognition memory persistence at 7 days was impaired in Che-1+/- heterozygous mice. This is the first evidence showing that Che-1 is involved in memory processes.