A microRNA negative feedback loop downregulates vesicle transport and inhibits fear memory
Abstract
The SNARE-mediated vesicular transport pathway plays major roles in synaptic remodeling associated with formation of long-term memories, but the mechanisms that regulate this pathway during memory acquisition are not fully understood. Here we identify miRNAs that are up-regulated in the rodent hippocampus upon contextual fear-conditioning and identify the vesicular transport and synaptogenesis pathways as the major targets of the fear-induced miRNAs. We demonstrate that miR-153, a member of this group, inhibits the expression of key components of the vesicular transport machinery, and down-regulates Glutamate receptor A1 trafficking and neurotransmitter release. MiR-153 expression is specifically induced during LTP induction in hippocampal slices and its knockdown in the hippocampus of adult mice results in enhanced fear memory. Our results suggest that miR-153, and possibly other fear-induced miRNAs, act as components of a negative feedback loop that blocks neuronal hyperactivity at least partly through the inhibition of the vesicular transport pathway.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Danesh Moazed
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Christopher A Walsh
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols of Harvard Medical School. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Harvard Medical School. All surgery was performed under sodium pentobarbital anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.
Reviewing Editor
- Gary L Westbrook, Vollum Institute, United States
Publication history
- Received: October 26, 2016
- Accepted: December 20, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 21, 2016 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: December 24, 2016 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: February 6, 2017 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2016, Mathew et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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- Cell Biology
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- Cell Biology
Full-length mRNAs transfer between adjacent mammalian cells via direct cell-to-cell connections called tunneling nanotubes (TNTs). However, the extent of mRNA transfer at the transcriptome-wide level (the 'transferome') is unknown. Here, we analyzed the transferome in an in vitro human-mouse cell co-culture model using RNA-sequencing. We found that mRNA transfer is non-selective, prevalent across the human transcriptome, and that the amount of transfer to mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) strongly correlates with the endogenous level of gene expression in donor human breast cancer cells. Typically, <1% of endogenous mRNAs undergo transfer. Non-selective, expression-dependent RNA transfer was further validated using synthetic reporters. RNA transfer appears contact-dependent via TNTs, as exemplified for several mRNAs. Notably, significant differential changes in the native MEF transcriptome were observed in response to co-culture, including the upregulation of multiple cancer and cancer-associated fibroblast-related genes and pathways. Together, these results lead us to suggest that TNT-mediated RNA transfer could be a phenomenon of physiological importance under both normal and pathogenic conditions.