Effect of acute ethanol on medidal prefrontal cortex across BXD genetic mapping panel and progenitors.. Mus musculus

In order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying individual variation in sensitivity to ethanol we profiled the prefrontal cortex transcriptomes of two inbred strains that exhibit divergent responses to acute ethanol, the C57BL6/J (B6) and DBA/2J (D2) strains, as well as 27 members of the BXD recombinant inbred panel, which was derived from a B6 x D2 cross. With this dataset we were able to identify several gene co-expression networks that were robustly altered by acute ethanol across the BXD panel. These ethanol-responsive gene-enriched networks were heavily populated by genes regulating synaptic transmission and neuroplasticity, and showed strong genetic linkage to discreet chromosomal loci. Network-based measurements of node importance identified several hub genes as established regulators of ethanol response phenotypes, while other hubs represent novel candidate modulators of ethanol responses. Overall design: Animals were injected intraperitoneally (IP) with saline or 1.8 g/kg of ethanol. As part of a parallel study of ethanol induced anxiolysis, all mice underwent behavioral testing that included 15 minutes of restraint in a 50 mL conical tube followed by 10 minutes in a light-dark chamber. Mice were killed by cervical dislocation four hours following IP injection. Immediately thereafter, brains were extracted and chilled for 1 minute in iced phosphate buffer before being microdissected into 8 constituent regions, including the medial prefrontal cortex. Samples were randomly assigned to batch groups prior to total RNA extraction, cRNA synthesis and hybridization. Each microarray represent a pooling of 4-5 animals.