Genome-Wide Promoter Analysis of Epigenetic Regulation by Cocaine (MM5 data)

Changes in gene expression contribute to the long-lasting regulation of the brain's reward circuitry seen in drug addiction, however, the specific genes regulated and the transcriptional mechanisms underlying such regulation remain poorly understood. Here, we used chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with promoter microarray analysis to characterize genome-wide epigenetic changes in the mouse nucleus accumbens, a crucial brain reward region, after repeated cocaine administration. Our findings reveal several interesting principles of gene regulation by cocaine and of the role of ΔFosB and CREB, two prominent cocaine-induced transcription factors, in this brain region. Mice were treated with cocaine or saline. Chromatin immunoprecipitation was performed for acetylated histone H3 and H4 as described previously (Kumar et al., 2005) with minor modifications. Immunoprecipitated DNA was amplified via ligation-mediated PCR and hybridized to Nimblgen mouse MM5 promoter arrays. 2 biological replicates per condition.