Title
Transcriptional Correlates of Chronic Alcohol Neuroadaptation in Drosophila Larvae
Date Issued
04 November 2021
Access level
open access
Resource Type
research article
Author(s)
Anqueira-González A.
Acevedo-Gonzalez J.P.
Montes-Mercado A.
Irizarry-Hernández C.
Fuenzalida-Uribe N.L.
Abstract
When presented with the choice, Drosophila melanogaster females will often prefer to lay eggs on food containing a significant amount of alcohol. While, in some cases, this behavioral decision can provide a survival advantage to the developing larvae, it can also lead to developmental and cognitive problems. Alcohol consumption can affect executive functions, episodic memory, and other brain function capacities. However, in the fruit fly, the initial cognitive effects of alcohol consumption have been shown to reverse upon persistent exposure to alcohol. Using an olfactory conditioning assay where an odorant is implemented as a conditioned stimulus and paired with a heat shock as an unconditioned stimulus, a previous study has shown that when exposed to a short acute dose of alcohol, Drosophila larvae can no longer learn this association. Interestingly, upon prolonged chronic alcohol exposure, larvae seem to successfully avoid the conditioned stimulus just as well as control alcohol-naive larvae, suggestive of alcohol-induced neuroadaptations. However, the mechanisms by which Drosophila adapt to the presence of alcohol remains unknown. In this study, we explore the transcriptional correlates of neuroadaptation in Drosophila larvae exposed to chronic alcohol to understand the genetic and cellular components responsible for this adaptation. For this, we employed RNA sequencing technology to evaluate differences in gene expression in the brain of larvae chronically exposed to alcohol. Our results suggest that alcohol-induced neuroadaptations are modulated by a diverse array of synaptic genes within the larval brain through a series of epigenetic modulators.
Volume
15
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Neurociencias
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85119422365
Source
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
ISSN of the container
16625153
Sponsor(s)
This study was funded by the NIH Blueprint initiative “Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences (NIH BP-ENDURE)” grant R25 NS080687, the NIH Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (NIH-RISE) grant 5R25 GM061151, the NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence: Puerto Rico Center for Neuroplasticity (NIH-COBRE) grant P20 GM103642. This manuscript was also made possible with support from the Sequencing and Genomics Facility of the UPR Río Piedras & MSRC/UPR, funded by NIH/NIGMS grant P20GM103475.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus