Brain expression data from fetal mouse brains prenatally exposed to ethanol

Moderate alcohol exposure during pregnancy can result in brain gene expression changes in resulting offspring. We have developed a mouse model of FASD that involves moderate ethanol exposure in mid-gestation (trimester 2 equivalent) achieved by injections of ethanol. We have previously shown that this model results in phenotypes relevant to FASD. Since ethanol is known to directly affect the expression of genes in the developing brain leading to abnormal cell death, changes to cell proliferation, migration, and differentiation, and potential changes to epigenetic patterning, we hypothesize that there will be gene expression changes immediately following acute ethanol exposure in the fetal brain. We used a microarray experiment and focused on the genes identified to evaluate the genome-wide alterations to the fetal brain transcriptome caused by prenatal ethanol exposure. To generate samples, female C57BL/6J mice were given ethanol injections (2.5g/kg of ethanol in saline) twice on gestational days 14 and 16 to produce acute ethanol exposure effects. Control females were injected with the same volume of saline. Dams were sacrified on gestational day 16, following ethanol exposure, and whole brains from fetuses were then extracted. RNA was isolated from brain tissue and samples from three mice were pooled to reduce litter effects and the pooled samples were hybridized on Affymetrix arrays (2 control and 2 ethanol chips, total n=12 mice).