Project description:The ability to form memories is a prerequisite for an organism’s behavioural adaptation to environmental changes. At the molecular level, the acquisition and maintenance of memory requires changes in chromatin modifications. In an effort to unravel the epigenetic network underlying both short- and long-term memory, we examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions, two cell-types, and three time-points before and after contextual learning. Here we show that histone modifications predominantly change during memory acquisition and correlate surprisingly little with changes in gene expression. While long-lasting changes are almost exclusive to neurons, learning-related histone modification and DNA methylation changes occur also in non-neuronal cell types, suggesting a functional role for non-neuronal cells in epigenetic learning. Finally, our data provides evidence for a molecular framework of memory acquisition and maintenance, wherein DNA methylation could alter the expression and splicing of genes involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring.
Project description:The ability to form memories is a prerequisite for an organism’s behavioural adaptation to environmental changes. At the molecular level, the acquisition and maintenance of memory requires changes in chromatin modifications. In an effort to unravel the epigenetic network underlying both short- and long-term memory, we examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions, two cell-types, and three time-points before and after contextual learning. Here we show that histone modifications predominantly change during memory acquisition and correlate surprisingly little with changes in gene expression. While long-lasting changes are almost exclusive to neurons, learning-related histone modification and DNA methylation changes occur also in non-neuronal cell types, suggesting a functional role for non-neuronal cells in epigenetic learning. Finally, our data provides evidence for a molecular framework of memory acquisition and maintenance, wherein DNA methylation could alter the expression and splicing of genes involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring.
Project description:The ability to form memories is a prerequisite for an organism’s behavioural adaptation to environmental changes. At the molecular level, the acquisition and maintenance of memory requires changes in chromatin modifications. In an effort to unravel the epigenetic network underlying both short- and long-term memory, we examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions, two cell-types, and three time-points before and after contextual learning. Here we show that histone modifications predominantly change during memory acquisition and correlate surprisingly little with changes in gene expression. While long-lasting changes are almost exclusive to neurons, learning-related histone modification and DNA methylation changes occur also in non-neuronal cell types, suggesting a functional role for non-neuronal cells in epigenetic learning. Finally, our data provides evidence for a molecular framework of memory acquisition and maintenance, wherein DNA methylation could alter the expression and splicing of genes involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring.
Project description:The ability to form memories is a prerequisite for an organismâs behavioural adaptation to environmental changes. At the molecular level, the acquisition and maintenance of memory requires changes in chromatin modifications. In an effort to unravel the epigenetic network underlying both short- and long-term memory, we examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions, two cell-types, and three time-points before and after contextual learning. Here we show that histone modifications predominantly change during memory acquisition and correlate surprisingly little with changes in gene expression. While long-lasting changes are almost exclusive to neurons, learning-related histone modification and DNA methylation changes occur also in non-neuronal cell types, suggesting a functional role for non-neuronal cells in epigenetic learning. Finally, our data provides evidence for a molecular framework of memory acquisition and maintenance, wherein DNA methylation could alter the expression and splicing of genes involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring. We examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions (CA1 and ACC), two cell-types (neurons, non-neurons), and three time-points before and after contextual learning (naive, 1h, 4w).
Project description:The ability to form memories is a prerequisite for an organismâs behavioural adaptation to environmental changes. At the molecular level, the acquisition and maintenance of memory requires changes in chromatin modifications. In an effort to unravel the epigenetic network underlying both short- and long-term memory, we examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions, two cell-types, and three time-points before and after contextual learning. Here we show that histone modifications predominantly change during memory acquisition and correlate surprisingly little with changes in gene expression. While long-lasting changes are almost exclusive to neurons, learning-related histone modification and DNA methylation changes occur also in non-neuronal cell types, suggesting a functional role for non-neuronal cells in epigenetic learning. Finally, our data provides evidence for a molecular framework of memory acquisition and maintenance, wherein DNA methylation could alter the expression and splicing of genes involved in functional plasticity and synaptic wiring. We examined chromatin modification changes in two distinct mouse brain regions (CA1 and ACC), two cell-types (neurons, non-neurons), and three time-points before and after contextual learning (naive, 1h, 4w).
Project description:The goal of our study was to assess whether the experience can regulate specific lncRNAs within the hippocampus and their role in associative memory. To address this, we carried out unbiased analyses of gene expression in CA1-hippocampal neurons to identify lncRNA changes induced by contextual fear conditioning (CFC).
Project description:Memory stabilization after learning requires transcriptional and translational regulations in the brain, yet the temporal molecular changes following learning have not been explored at the genomic scale. We here employed ribosome profiling and RNA sequencing to quantify the translational status and transcript levels in mouse hippocampus following contextual fear conditioning. We identified 104 genes that are dynamically regulated. Intriguingly, our analysis revealed novel repressive regulations in the hippocampus: translational suppression of ribosomal protein-coding genes at basal state; learning-induced early translational repression of specific genes; and late persistent suppression of a subset of genes via inhibition of ESR1/ERα signaling. Further behavioral analyses revealed that Nrsn1, one of the newly identified genes undergoing rapid translational repression, can act as a memory suppressor gene. This study unveils the yet unappreciated importance of gene repression mechanisms in memory formation.
Project description:This dataset constitutes the first Sono-Seq study of chromatin accessibility following contextual fear conditioning in the mouse hippocampus.
Project description:This dataset constitutes the first RNA-seq study of gene expression following contextual fear conditioning in the mouse hippocampus.