Prenatal VPA exposure alters postnatal histone 3 acetylation levels

AMAICHA DEPINO; ARACELI SEIFFE; NADIA KAZLAUSKAS

Congreso; 2nd Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neuroscience Societies Congress 2016; 2016

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized byreduced sociability, diminished communicative skills andrepetitive behaviors. Notably, the proportion betweenboys and girls diagnosed with ASD is 4:1 approximately.This suggests a bigger susceptibility in boys to developthis disorder, or a major resilience in girls. To identify thebiological mechanisms acting in female animals thatcould underlie this bias, we used a mouse model of ASD:the prenatal exposure to valproic acid (VPA). Recently, wehave observed that this model also presents a differentphenotype in males and females, as females do not showthe reduction in sociability observed in adult males.Previous results of our group indicate that prenatal exposureto VPA leads to alterations in microglia and astrocytesin female pups. Considering VPA functions as a histonedeacetylase inhibitor, we analyzed histone acetylation as apossible epigenetic mechanism underlying the observedalterations in glial cell density and found a decrease inhistone 3 acetylation in the cerebellum of female VPA pupsat postnatal day (P) 14. The aim of this work is to study thedifferences in histone acetylation between female and malepups at P 14. To this aim, we extracted histone-enrichednuclear protein at P 14 from male and female pups. We hopethat this study will help us identify a possible molecularmechanism underlying the effects of prenatal VPA exposureon glial cell density and/or behavior.