GSE131040 Maternal antioxidant treatment prevents behavioural and neurological changes in offspring exposed to prenatal social stress [RNA-seq]

Contributors : Hannah Scott ; Thomas J Phillips ; Ying Sze ; Alessio Alfieri ; Mark F Rogers ; Charles P Case ; Paula J BruntonSeries Type : Expression profiling by high throughput sequencingOrganism : Rattus norvegicusMaternal exposure to social stress during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of psychiatric disorders in the offspring in later life. How the effects of maternal social stress are transmitted to the developing foetus is unclear. Using a rat model of maternal social stress during pregnancy, we explored the mechanisms by which maternal stress is conveyed to the foetus and the potential for targeted treatment to prevent disease in the offspring. Maternal stress induced oxidative stress in the placenta, but not in the foetal brain, which was prevented by a single administration of nanoparticle-bound antioxidant prior to the stress exposure. Moreover, this antioxidant treatment prevented prenatal stress-induced anxiety-like behaviour in juvenile male offspring, along with neurological and gene expression changes in the offspring brain. In vitro, placental conditioned medium or foetal plasma from stressed pregnancies caused changes to cultured cortical neurons, similar to those observed in the brains of juvenile offspring exposed to prenatal stress, and were found to contain altered levels of extracellular microRNAs but not corticosterone. The present study highlights the crucial role of the placenta, and molecules secreted from the placenta, in foetal...
Source: GEO: Gene Expression Omnibus - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Tags: Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing Rattus norvegicus Source Type: research