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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Volume 14 - 2023 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1341348

Genetic background determines synaptic phenotypes in Arid1b-mutant mice

Hyosang Kim1 Eunjoon Kim1, 2*
  • 1Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Republic of Korea
  • 2Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea

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ARID1B, a chromatin remodeler, is strongly implicated in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Two previous studies on Arid1b-mutant mice with the same exon 5 deletion in different genetic backgrounds revealed distinct synaptic phenotypes underlying the behavioral abnormalities: The first paper reported decreased inhibitory synaptic transmission in layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) region of the heterozygous Arid1b-mutant (Arid1b +/-) brain without changes in excitatory synaptic transmission. In the second paper, in contrast, we did not observe any inhibitory synaptic change in layer 5 mPFC pyramidal neurons, but instead saw decreased excitatory synaptic transmission in layer 2/3 mPFC pyramidal neurons without any inhibitory synaptic change. In the present report, we show that when we changed the genetic background of Arid1b +/-mice from C57BL/6N to C57BL/6J, to mimic the mutant mice of the first paper, we observed both the decreased inhibitory synaptic transmission in layer 5 mPFC pyramidal neurons reported in the first paper, and the decreased excitatory synaptic transmission in mPFC layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons reported in the second paper. These results suggest that genetic background can be a key determinant of the inhibitory synaptic phenotype in Arid1bmutant mice while having minimal effects on the excitatory synaptic phenotype.

Keywords: ARID1B mutation, Genetic back ground, Miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents, Miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents, synaptic phenotype

Received: 22 Nov 2023; Accepted: 22 Dec 2023.

Copyright: © 2023 Kim and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Prof. Eunjoon Kim, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Daejeon, 34126, Daejeon, Republic of Korea