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BeNeLux Bioinformatics Conference – Antwerp, December 7-8 <strong>2015</strong><br />
Abstract ID: O18<br />
Oral presentation<br />
10th Benelux Bioinformatics Conference <strong>bbc</strong> <strong>2015</strong><br />
O18. SPATIAL CO-EXPRESSION ANALYSIS OF STEROID RECEPTORS IN<br />
THE MOUSE BRAIN IDENTIFIES REGION-SPECIFIC REGULATION<br />
MECHANISMS<br />
Ahmed Mahfouz 1,2* , Boudewijn P.F. Lelieveldt 1,2 , Aldo Grefhorst 3 , Isabel M. Mol 4 , Hetty C.M. Sips 4 , José K. van den<br />
Heuvel 4 , Jenny A. Visser 3 , Marcel J.T. Reinders 2 , & Onno C. Meijer 4 .<br />
Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center 1 ; Delft Bioinformatics Lab, Delft University of<br />
Technology 2 ; Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Center 3 ; Department of Internal Medicine,<br />
Leiden University Medical Center 4 . * a.mahfouz@lumc.nl<br />
Steroid hormones coordinate the activity of many brain regions by binding to nuclear receptors that act as transcription<br />
factors. This study uses genome wide correlation of gene expression in the mouse brain to discover 1) brain regions that<br />
respond in a similar manner to particular steroids, 2) signaling pathways that are used in a steroid receptor and brain<br />
region-specific manner, and 3) potential target genes and relationships between groups of target genes. The data<br />
constitute a rich repository for the research community to support new insights in neuroendocrine relationships, and to<br />
develop novel ways to manipulate brain activity in research of clinical settings.<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
Steroid receptors are pleiotropic transcription factors that<br />
coordinate adaptation to different physiological states. An<br />
important target organ is the brain, but its complexity<br />
hampers the understanding of their modulation.<br />
METHODS<br />
We used the Allen Brain Atlas (ABA) (Lein et al., 2007),<br />
the most comprehensive repository of in situ<br />
hybridization-based gene expression in the adult mouse<br />
brain, to identify genes that have three dimensional (3D)<br />
spatial gene expression profiles similar to steroid receptors.<br />
To validate the functional relevance of this approach, we<br />
analyzed the co-expression relationship of the<br />
glucocorticoid receptor (Gr) and estrogen receptor alpha<br />
(Esr1) and their known transcriptional targets in their<br />
brain regions of action. Next, we studied the regionspecific<br />
co-expression of nuclear receptors and their coregulators<br />
to identify potential partners mediating the<br />
hormonal effects on dopaminergic transmission. Finally,<br />
to illustrate the potential of using spatial co-expression to<br />
predict region-specific steroid receptor targets in the brain,<br />
we identified and validated gene which responded to<br />
changes in estrogen in the arcuate nucleus and medial<br />
preoptic area of the mouse hypothalamus.<br />
RESULTS & DISCUSSION<br />
For each steroid receptor, we ranked genes based on their<br />
spatial co-expression across the whole brain as well as in<br />
each of the aforementioned 12 brain structures separately.<br />
For each steroid receptor, strongly co-expressed genes<br />
within a brain region are likely related to the localized<br />
functional role of the receptor. For example, out of the top<br />
10 genes co-expressed with Esr1 across the whole brain, 4<br />
were previously shown to be regulated by Esr1 and/or<br />
estrogens in various tissues (Gpr101, Calcr, Ngb, and<br />
Gpx3)<br />
We assessed the extent of co-expression of glucocorticoid<br />
(GC)-responsive genes (Datson et al., 2012) with Gr in the<br />
whole brain, the hippocampus and its substructures the<br />
dentate gyrus (DG) and the different subregions of the<br />
cornu ammonis (CA). GC-responsive genes were<br />
significantly co-expressed with Gr in the DG, but<br />
interestingly also in the whole brain and in the CA3 region<br />
(FDR-corrected p < 1.8×10 -3 ; Mann-Whitney U-Test).<br />
Similarly, A Mann-Whitney U-test showed that a set of 15<br />
genes that are sensitive to gonadal steroids (Xu et al.,<br />
2012) is significantly correlated to Esr1 across the whole<br />
brain (FDR-corrected p = 8.69 ×10 -14 ), as well as in the<br />
hypothalamus (p = 3.85×10 -10 ) , the brain region<br />
responsible for the sexual behavior in animals.<br />
In order to identify putative region-dependent coregulators<br />
of steroid receptors, we analyzed the coexpression<br />
relationships of the each steroid receptor and a<br />
set of 62 nuclear receptor co-regulators as present on a<br />
peptide array (Nwachukwu et al., 2014). We focused our<br />
analysis on well-established target regions of steroid<br />
hormone action, dopaminergic brain regions (ventral<br />
tegmental area; VTA & substantia nigra; SN). We found<br />
three significantly co-expressed co-regulators with<br />
androgen receptor (Ar): Pnrc2, Pak6 and Trerf1,<br />
suggesting that these receptors may be involved in<br />
mediating Ar effects on dopaminergic transmission.<br />
In order to validate the predictive value of high correlated<br />
expression with a steroid receptor, we analyzed the<br />
response of top 10 genes that are strongly co-expressed<br />
with Esr1 in the hypothalamus to the estrogen<br />
diethylstilbesterol (DES) in castrated male mice using<br />
qPCR. We performed quantitative double in situ<br />
hybridization (dISH) for Esr1 and the six mRNAs (Irs4,<br />
Magel2, Adck4, Unc5, Ngb, and Gdpd2) that showed more<br />
than 1.3 fold enrichment in qPCR. We found Irs4 and<br />
Magel2 mRNA were both significantly upregulated by<br />
DES treatment (1.9 and 2.4-fold, respectively).<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Lein E. et al. Nature 445, 168–76 (2007).<br />
Datson N. et al. Hippocampus 22, 359–71 (2012).<br />
Xu X. et al., Cell 3, 596–607 (2012).<br />
Nwachukwu J. et al. eLife 3, e02057 (2014).<br />
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