Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology
Author: Erika Ines Georgieff | email: georgiefferikaines@gmail.com
Erika Georgieff 1°, Carolina D Alberca 1°, Jennifer Miranda 1°, Eduardo T. Cánepa 1°, Mariela Chertoff 1°
1° Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Departamento de Química Biológica, Laboratorio de Neuroepigenética, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2° Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Departamento de Química Biológica, Laboratorio de Neuroepigenética, Buenos Aires, Argentina.CONICET-Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Química Biológica de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales CONICET (IQUIBICEN), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A deficiency in the maternal diet has long-term consequences affecting the brain development of the progeny, along with dam’s behavior. In particular, DNA methylation has been proposed as the main mechanism used by neurons to adapt to a changing environment. In the present work, female mice exposed to a normal-protein or a low-protein diet during gestation and lactation were evaluated for anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors and gene and protein expression have been measured in dams and offspring. We have demonstrated that a low protein diet during pregnancy and lactation produces socio-emotive disorders, such as anxiety-like behavior and anhedonia in dams. Protein malnutrition during the perinatal period produces a delay in physical and neurological development in offspring of both sexes. DNA methylation/demethylation machinery is modulated by a low protein diet in the offspring. Specifically, malnourished female pups exhibited a significant increase in the expression of Dnmt3a, Gadd45b, and Fkbp5 and a reduction in Bdnf exon VI and GR protein expression. Male pups exposed to a low protein diet only showed a reduction in Dnmt1 expression. The postpartum disorders observed in malnourished dams might be mediated by the reduction of hippocampal GR expression. Additionally, several genes involved in DNA methylation/demethylation are differentially deregulated in female and male mice, providing an insight into sex-specific mechanisms due to protein malnut.