Hormones and behavior
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Hormones and behavior · Mar 2011
Individual differences in the effect of social defeat on anhedonia and histone acetylation in the rat hippocampus.
Major depression is a growing problem worldwide with variation in symptoms and response to treatment. Individual differences in response to stress may contribute to such observed individual variation in behavior and pathology. Therefore, we investigated depressive-like behavior following exposure to repeated social defeat in a rat model of individual differences in response to novelty. ⋯ Following defeat, this acetylation pattern changed differentially, with HR rats decreasing acetylation of H3K14 and H2B and LR's increasing acetylation of H3K14. Acetylation on histone H4 decreased following defeat with no individual variation. Basal differences in CBP expression levels may underlie the observed acetylation pattern; however we found no significant effects of defeat in levels of HDACs 3, 4, 5 in the hippocampus.
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Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is a direct consequence of functional mutations in the methyl-CpG-binding protein-2 (MeCP2) gene, which has focused attention on epigenetic mechanisms in neurons. MeCP2 is widely believed to be a transcriptional repressor although it may have additional functions in the CNS. ⋯ Recent work has also demonstrated that MeCP2 plays an important role in mediating synaptic transmission in the CNS in particular, spontaneous neurotransmission and short-term synaptic plasticity. This review will discuss the role of MeCP2 in CNS development and function, as well as a potential important role for MeCP2 and epigenetic processes involved in mediating transcriptional repression in Rett syndrome.