Transcriptional profiling of ventral tegmental area of male mice with alternative patterns of social behaviors

Poster (download)

72

Olga Redina¹, Vladimir Babenko², Vadim Efimov³, Dmitry Smagin⁴, Irina Kovalenko⁵, Anna Galyamina⁶, Natalia Kudryavtseva^7
1Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Laboratory of Evolutional Genetics, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, oredina@bionet.nsc.ru
²Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, bob@bionet.nsc.ru
³Laboratory of Molecular Genetic Systems Modeling, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, efimov@bionet.nsc.ru
⁴Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, smagin@bionet.nsc.ru
⁵Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, koir@bionet.nsc.ru
⁶Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, galyamina@bionet.nsc.ru
⁷Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, n.n.kudryavtseva@gmail.com

The activity of ventral tegmental area (VTA) neurons plays a crucial role in the reward circuit, emotional and addictive behaviors in animals and humans. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the functional changes in VTA neurons under stress arising from social interactions, RNA-Seq analysis was used to compare the transcriptome profiles in the VTA of three groups of male mice: chronically winning mice with positive social experience in daily agonistic interactions, chronically defeated mice with negative social experience in daily agonistic interactions, and control mice having no experience of agonistic interactions. The data obtained showed that both winning and defeated mice experience stress, however, in defeated animals, the repeated agonistic interactions have a stronger effect and cause more significant changes in the levels of gene transcription. Several genes have been identified that may be involved in the determination of alternative behavioral phenotypes in groups of male mice with alternative social experience.