Placental transcriptomic pattern of murine advanced paternal age model of autism. Mus musculus

Advanced paternal age has been shown to be a significant risk factor for neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders, particularly autism. We have recently shown that mice conceived by old fathers display behavioral abnormalities which resemble key diagnostic symptoms of human autism. De novo mutations and epigenetic alterations increase in the male germ line during ageing and are thought to mediate the effect of paternal age on occurrence of diseases occurrence. Because the placenta carry a predominantly fetal genetic background, age-related mutagenesis and epigenetic errors might negatively influence placental physiology and in turn perturb fetal brain development. Here, we examined the impact of paternal age on placental mRNA transcriptome. This work was supported by Programme FP7-KBBE-2012.1.3-04, GA no. 312097 Acronym: FECUND, to GEP; MIUR/CNR, Programme FIRB. GA n. B81J12002520001 Acronym: GenHome, to PL. This study was also partially financed by the IGAB PAS project (S.III.1.3), Polish Scientific Committee Grant 2011/03/N/NZ29/05222, Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Grants N N519 657940 and N N311 604938. Overall design: We compared gene expression patterns of mouse placentas harvested from either advanced paternal age model (APA) of autism or control animals. We included 2 comparisons: 1) placenta of female APA vs placenta of female control; 2) placenta of male APA vs placenta of male control. Each comparison was composed of 3 biological replicates. To minimize family bias, poolings contained at most one placenta per sex from each dam to a minimum of one and a maximum of three placentas per group/sex.