Prenatal Stress-induced Depressive-like Behavior is Associated with Brain Metabotranscriptome Remodeling and is Reversed by Acetyl-carnitine

ABSTRACT: Intergenerational stress increases lifetime susceptibility to depression and other psychiatric disorders. Whether intergenerational stress transmission is a consequence of in-utero neurodevelopmental disruptions or early-life mother-infant interaction is largely unknown, due to the complexity, superposition, and inseparability between the prenatal and postnatal mechanisms. Here we show that prenatal stress, through exposing pregnant mice to predator scent, induces depressive-like behavior and social deficits. Cross-fostering experiments indicate divergent and convergent mechanisms of both in utero and early-life parenting environments and support a two-hit model of stress transmission. According to this model, prenatal stress (first-hit) primes brain metabolome and transcriptome (metabotranscriptome), and increases vulnerability to the second-hit in early life, triggered by poor caregiving by the traumatized mothers. Metabolomics, transcriptomic and bioinformatics analyses reveal mechanisms that involve stress- and hypoxia- response metabolic pathways in the brains of the newborn mice, likely through the production of the epigenetic modifiers 2-Hydroxyglutaric acid and succinic acid. These responses produce long-lasting alterations in mitochondrial-energy metabolism, and epigenetic processes pertaining to DNA and chromatin modifications. We demonstrate that an early pharmacological intervention – correction of the mitochondria metabolism, and epigenetic modifications with acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR) supplementation - produces long-lasting protection against the behavioral deficits associated with intergenerational transmission of traumatic stress.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE171275 | GEO | 2021/04/01

REPOSITORIES: GEO