TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of Mecp2 loss of function in embryonic cortical neurons
T2 - A bioinformatics strategy to sort out non-neuronal cells variability from transcriptome profiling
AU - Vacca, Marcella
AU - Tripathi, Kumar Parijat
AU - Speranza, Luisa
AU - Aiese Cigliano, Riccardo
AU - Scalabrì, Francesco
AU - Marracino, Federico
AU - Madonna, Michele
AU - Sanseverino, Walter
AU - Perrone-Capano, Carla
AU - Guarracino, Mario Rosario
AU - D'Esposito, Maurizio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Vacca et al.
PY - 2016/1/20
Y1 - 2016/1/20
N2 - Background: Mecp2 null mice model Rett syndrome (RTT) a human neurological disorder affecting females after apparent normal pre- and peri-natal developmental periods. Neuroanatomical studies in cerebral cortex of RTT mouse models revealed delayed maturation of neuronal morphology and autonomous as well as non-cell autonomous reduction in dendritic complexity of postnatal cortical neurons. However, both morphometric parameters and high-resolution expression profile of cortical neurons at embryonic developmental stage have not yet been studied. Here we address these topics by using embryonic neuronal primary cultures from Mecp2 loss of function mouse model. Results: We show that embryonic primary cortical neurons of Mecp2 null mice display reduced neurite complexity possibly reflecting transcriptional changes. We used RNA-sequencing coupled with a bioinformatics comparative approach to identify and remove the contribution of variable and hard to quantify non-neuronal brain cells present in our in vitro cell cultures. Conclusions: Our results support the need to investigate both Mecp2 morphological as well as molecular effect in neurons since prenatal developmental stage, long time before onset of Rett symptoms.
AB - Background: Mecp2 null mice model Rett syndrome (RTT) a human neurological disorder affecting females after apparent normal pre- and peri-natal developmental periods. Neuroanatomical studies in cerebral cortex of RTT mouse models revealed delayed maturation of neuronal morphology and autonomous as well as non-cell autonomous reduction in dendritic complexity of postnatal cortical neurons. However, both morphometric parameters and high-resolution expression profile of cortical neurons at embryonic developmental stage have not yet been studied. Here we address these topics by using embryonic neuronal primary cultures from Mecp2 loss of function mouse model. Results: We show that embryonic primary cortical neurons of Mecp2 null mice display reduced neurite complexity possibly reflecting transcriptional changes. We used RNA-sequencing coupled with a bioinformatics comparative approach to identify and remove the contribution of variable and hard to quantify non-neuronal brain cells present in our in vitro cell cultures. Conclusions: Our results support the need to investigate both Mecp2 morphological as well as molecular effect in neurons since prenatal developmental stage, long time before onset of Rett symptoms.
KW - Embryonic cortical neurons
KW - MeCP2
KW - Neural cells
KW - Primary branching
KW - RNA-sequencing
KW - Rett syndrome
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U2 - 10.1186/s12859-015-0859-7
DO - 10.1186/s12859-015-0859-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 26821710
AN - SCOPUS:84954458478
SN - 1471-2105
VL - 17
JO - BMC bioinformatics
JF - BMC bioinformatics
IS - 2
M1 - S14
ER -