Deeba Noreen Baig
Forman Christian college University, Pakistan
Title: Knock down of Neuroligin-2 in Cortical region leads to Hyperactivity and Autistic like Behaviour features
Biography
Biography: Deeba Noreen Baig
Abstract
Neuroligins (NL) and their genetic variants were found to be strongly implicated in the pathophysiology of autistic disorders. Neuroligin-2 (NL2) is a postsynaptic cell adhesion molecule, which is predominantly expressed at inhibitory synapses and required for synapse specification and stabilization. NL2 knockout mice lacking functional NL2 were shown to result in alterations of social behaviors as well as altered inhibitory synaptic transmission, hence modifying the excitation to inhibition balance. Here, we focused on the role of NL2 in the cerebral cortex in the regulation of social behaviors. To this purpose, we designed shRNA system based sh-NL2 construct and injected in lateral ventricles of embryonic brain of mice by in utero electroporation (IUE) to knock down the expression of NL2 at transcriptional level. The effects of NL2 gene silencing were explored by analyzing the expression of NL1 to check impairment in synaptic balance. Our results suggest the synchronization of IUE and shRNA silencing technology proved to be highly successful to determine the effect of local suppression of NL2 in defined compartment cortex of brain. Despite of their confined knockdown of NL2 in the cortex, in vitro studies indicated that it is strongly disturbed normal excitation to inhibition balance. The induced synaptic imbalance in cortex critically appeared in hyperactive stereotypies and impaired social interaction of mice, which are key features of autistic like behavior.