Changes in calcium homeostasis and gene expression implicated in epilepsy in hippocampi of mice overexpressing ORAI1

We showed that the overexpression of ORAI1 in the neurons of murine brain leads to spontaneous occurrence of seizure-like events in aged animals. We aimed to identify the mechanism responsible for this phenomenon. Using modified Ca2+-addback assay in the slices of CA1 hippocampal region and FURA-2AM calcium indicator we found that overexpression of ORAI1 in neurons leads to altered Ca2+ response. Next, by RNASeq we identified set of genes, whose expression was changed in FVB/NJ-Tg(ORAI1)Ibd mice. We isolated total RNA from hippocampi of wild-type (n=3) and of FVB/NJ-Tg(Orai1)Ibd (n=3) females and performed RNAseq experiments.