Genome-Wide Temporal Expression Profiling in Caenorhabditis elegans Identifies a Core Gene Set Related to Long-Term Memory.
Virginie FreytagSabine ProbstNils HadziselimovicCsaba BoglariYannick HauserFabian PeterBank Gabor FenyvesAnnette MilnikPhilippe DemouginVanja VukojevicDominique J-F de QuervainAndreas PapassotiropoulosAttila StetakPublished in: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (2017)
The identification of genes related to encoding, storage, and retrieval of memories is a major interest in neuroscience. In the current study, we analyzed the temporal gene expression changes in a neuronal mRNA pool during an olfactory long-term associative memory (LTAM) in Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodites. Here, we identified a core set of 712 (538 upregulated and 174 downregulated) genes that follows three distinct temporal peaks demonstrating multiple gene regulation waves in LTAM. Compared with the previously published positive LTAM gene set (Lakhina et al., 2015), 50% of the identified upregulated genes here overlap with the previous dataset, possibly representing stimulus-independent memory-related genes. On the other hand, the remaining genes were not previously identified in positive associative memory and may specifically regulate aversive LTAM. Our results suggest a multistep gene activation process during the formation and retrieval of long-term memory and define general memory-implicated genes as well as conditioning-type-dependent gene sets.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The identification of genes regulating different steps of memory is of major interest in neuroscience. Identification of common memory genes across different learning paradigms and the temporal activation of the genes are poorly studied. Here, we investigated the temporal aspects of Caenorhabditis elegans gene expression changes using aversive olfactory associative long-term memory (LTAM) and identified three major gene activation waves. Like in previous studies, aversive LTAM is also CREB dependent, and CREB activity is necessary immediately after training. Finally, we define a list of memory paradigm-independent core gene sets as well as conditioning-dependent genes.
Keyphrases
- genome wide
- genome wide identification
- dna methylation
- working memory
- copy number
- gene expression
- bioinformatics analysis
- genome wide analysis
- transcription factor
- randomized controlled trial
- blood brain barrier
- mass spectrometry
- cerebral ischemia
- atomic force microscopy
- high resolution
- subarachnoid hemorrhage
- high speed
- solid state
- virtual reality