Comparative Analysis of the hippocampal transcriptome of WT and NONO KO mice

Identifying causes of sporadic intellectual disability remains a considerable medical challenge. Here, we demonstrate that null mutations in the NONO gene, a member of the Drosophila Behavior Human Splicing (DBHS) protein family, are a novel cause of X-linked syndromic intellectual disability. Comparing humans to Nono-deficient mice revealed related behavioral and craniofacial anomalies, as well as global transcriptional dysregulation. Nono-deficient mice also showed deregulation of a large number of synaptic transcripts, causing a disorganization of inhibitory synapses, with impaired postsynaptic scaffolding of gephyrin. Alteration of gephyrin clustering could be rescued by over-expression of Gabra2 in NONO-compromised neurons. These findings link NONO to intellectual disability and first highlight the key role of DBHS proteins in functional organization of GABAergic synapses. Hippocampal mRNA profiles of adult wild type (WT) and NONO KO mice were generated by deep sequencing, in six replicates using Illumina