MicroRNA profiling in the medial and lateral habenula of rats exposed to the learned helplessness paradigm: Candidate biomarkers for susceptibility and resilience to inescapable shock

Katrine Svenningsen, Morten T. Venø, Kim Henningsen, Anne S. Mallien, Line Jensen, Trine Christensen, Jørgen Kjems, Barbara Vollmayr, Ove Wiborg Wiborg

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Depression is a highly heterogeneous disorder presumably caused by a combination of several factors ultimately causing the pathological condition. The genetic liability model of depression is likely to be of polygenic heterogeneity. miRNAs can regulate multiple genes simultaneously and therefore are candidates that align with this model. The habenula has been linked to depression in both clinical and animal studies, shifting interest towards this region as a neural substrate in depression. The goal of the present study was to search for alterations in miRNA expression levels in the medial and lateral habenula of rats exposed to the learned helplessness (LH) rat model of depression. Ten miRNAs showed significant alterations associating with their response to the LH paradigm. Of these, six and four miR-NAs were significantly regulated in the MHb and LHb, respectively. In the MHb we identified miR-490, miR-291a-3p, MiR-467a, miR-216a, miR-18b, and miR-302a. In the LHb miR-543, miR-367, miR-467c, and miR-760-5p were significantly regulated. A target gene analysis showed that several of the target genes are involved in MAPK signaling, neutrophin signaling, and ErbB signaling, indicating that neurotransmission is affected in the habenula as a consequence of exposure to the LH paradigm.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0160318
JournalPLOS ONE
Volume11
Issue number8
ISSN1932-6203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Svenningsen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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