Expression pattern dysregulation of stress- and neuronal activity-related genes in response to prenatal stress paradigm in zebrafish larvae

Abstract

Maternal stress during pregnancy adversely affects developmental fetal programming. Glucocorticoid excess is one of those conditions that underlie the prenatal stress and can lead to many pathological disorders later in life. Beyond the obvious use of mammalian model organisms to uncover the different mechanisms at the basis of prenatal stress effects, zebrafish represents a complementary fruitful model for this research field. Here we demonstrated that the application of an experimental paradigm, which simulates prenatal stress by exposing embryos to cortisol excess, produced an alteration of gene expression pattern. In particular, the transcript level of hsd11b2, a gene involved in the cortisol catabolism, was affected in prenatally stressed larvae, even after many hours from the removal of cortisol excess. Interestingly, the expression pattern of c-fos, a marker gene of neural activity, was affected in prenatally stressed larvae even in response to a swirling and osmotic stress challenge. Our data corroborate the idea of zebrafish as a useful model organism to study prenatal stress effects on vertebrate development.

The mechanism and effects of remdesivir‐induced developmental toxicity in zebrafish: Blood flow dysfunction and behavioral alterations

“…Fosab is a marker of neural activity under stress challenge, and the expression of fosab is commonly analyzed to assess the zebrafish stress response (D'Agostino et al, 2019). The level of neuronal excitability is associated with locomotor activity at the larval stage.…”

LINC00473 as an Immediate Early Gene under the Control of the EGR1 Transcription Factor

“…Cells respond to stimuli through a set of genes known as IEGs that are primed for rapid activation and then rapidly switched off [ 1 ]. IEGs are elements involved in many cellular processes including differentiation and proliferation, and often are dysregulated in pathological states and cancer where they become continuously active [ 49 , 50 , 51 ]. Many IEGs encode transcription factors that regulate secondary response genes [ 52 ].…”

The Effects of Early Life Stress on the Brain and Behaviour: Insights From Zebrafish Models

“… Best et al (2017) detected an increase in primary neurogenesis in the preoptic region and pallium, as well as increased brain expression of proneural gene neurod4 in zebrafish embryos following exposure to maternal cortisol, suggesting that maternal cortisol may alter brain development in a region-specific manner. Additionally, D’Agostino et al (2019) reported increased basal expression of cfos in prenatally stressed zebrafish larvae, as well as altered reactivity of cfos expression level to an acute stressor. The cfos gene is often used as a marker of neuronal activity, and as such, these data suggest that prenatal exposure to cortisol might affect neuronal function in the basal state, as well as during stimulus processing.…”