Nuclear Factor-κB transcription factor regulates zif268 expression during novel object recognition memory formation in mice.

ZALCMAN, GISELA P; FEDERMAN NOEL; DE LA FUENTE VERONICA; ROMANO ARTURO

Huerta Grande, Provincia de Córdoba

Congreso; XXVIII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias & Reunión Satélite: ?Bases Neurales de la Conducta: Neuroetología y Neurobiología de la Memoria en el Cono Sur?; 2013

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) is a transcription factor that plays a key role in the activity-dependent neural plasticity involved in memory formation. In this work, we studied the role of NF-kB in the downstream regulation of the gene zif268 during novel object recognition (NOR) memory consolidation in mice. zif268 is an immediate early gene involved in different types of memory formation that codes for the regulatory transcription factor ZIF268. Several studies use its expression as a marker of learning-induced activity in the brain. We found that ZIF268 protein levels in the mice hippocampus were increased forty five minutes after training in a NOR task, and returned to baseline levels three hours later. This increase was significantly reduced when an NF-kB inhibitor was injected locally immediately after training. Furthermore, inhibiting NF-kB activation or zif268 mRNA translation in the hippocampus lead to low levels of NOR performance, suggesting not only that both transcription factors are necessary for NOR memory formation but also that the hippocampus is a key structure involved in this process. Overall in this study we demonstrate the first evidence that NF-kB upregulates ZIF268 protein levels during NOR memory consolidation and we show that both proteins are involved in the formation of the object recognition memory trace. Ongoing experiments performing ChIP assays are aimed at evaluating if the upregulation by NF-kB is taking place directly on zif268 promoter.