Abstract
Disruption of disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), a candidate susceptibility gene for schizophrenia, was first identified in a large Scottish family in which many members suffered from various psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. To model the Scottish DISC1 truncation, we established a Disc1 mutant mouse line in which the 129S6/SvEv 25-bp deletion variant was transferred into the C57BL/6J strain by backcrossing. A battery of behavioral tasks was conducted to evaluate the basic behaviors and cognitive function of these mice. In heterozygote and homozygote Disc1 mutant (Het and Homo) mice, behavioral impairments were noted in working memory test which is thought to be mediated by the function of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). The properties of mPFC neurons were characterized in both morphological and physiological aspects. The dendritic diameters were decreased in layer II/III mPFC pyramidal neurons of Het and Homo mice, whereas a significant reduction in spine density was observed in Homo mice. Neuronal excitability was declined in layer II/III mPFC pyramidal neurons of Het and Homo mice, yet increased transmitter release was identified in Homo mice. Thus, the structural and functional alterations of the mPFC in Het and Homo mice might account for their cognitive impairment. Since most of the gene knockout mice are generated from 129 substrain-derived embryonic stem cells, potential Disc1 deficiency should be considered.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abazyan B, Nomura J, Kannan G, Ishizuka K, Tamashiro KL, Nucifora F, Pogorelov V, Ladenheim B, Yang C, Krasnova IN, Cadet JL, Pardo C, Mori S, Kamiya A, Vogel MW, Sawa A, Ross CA, Pletnikov MV (2010) Prenatal interaction of mutant DISC1 and immune activation produces adult psychopathology. Biol Psychiatry 68:1172–1181
Arguello PA, Gogos JA (2012) Genetic and cognitive windows into circuit mechanisms of psychiatric disease. Trends Neurosci 35:3–13
Ayhan Y, Abazyan B, Nomura J, Kim R, Ladenheim B, Krasnova IN, Sawa A, Margolis RL, Cadet JL, Mori S, Vogel MW, Ross CA, Pletnikov MV (2011) Differential effects of prenatal and postnatal expressions of mutant human DISC1 on neurobehavioral phenotypes in transgenic mice: evidence for neurodevelopmental origin of major psychiatric disorders. Mol Psychiatry 16:293–306
Blackwood DH, Fordyce A, Walker MT, St Clair DM, Porteous DJ, Muir WJ (2001) Schizophrenia and affective disorders—cosegregation with a translocation at chromosome 1q42 that directly disrupts brain-expressed genes: clinical and P300 findings in a family. Am J Hum Genet 69:428–433
Brandon NJ, Sawa A (2011) Linking neurodevelopmental and synaptic theories of mental illness through DISC1. Nat Rev Neurosci 12:707–722
Brown R, Colter N, Corsellis JA, Crow TJ, Frith CD, Jagoe R, Johnstone EC, Marsh L (1986) Postmortem evidence of structural brain changes in schizophrenia. Differences in brain weight, temporal horn area, and parahippocampal gyrus compared with affective disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry 43:36–42
Byne W, Buchsbaum MS, Kemether E, Hazlett EA, Shinwari A, Mitropoulou V, Siever LJ (2001) Magnetic resonance imaging of the thalamic mediodorsal nucleus and pulvinar in schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry 58:133–140
Camargo LM, Collura V, Rain JC, Mizuguchi K, Hermjakob H, Kerrien S, Bonnert TP, Whiting PJ, Brandon NJ (2007) Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1 Interactome: evidence for the close connectivity of risk genes and a potential synaptic basis for schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry 12:74–86
Castner SA, Goldman-Rakic PS, Williams GV (2004) Animal models of working memory: insights for targeting cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. Psychopharmacology 174:111–125
Clapcote SJ, Roder JC (2006) Deletion polymorphism of Disc1 is common to all 129 mouse substrains: implications for gene-targeting studies of brain function. Genetics 173:2407–2410
Danos P, Baumann B, Krämer A, Bernstein HG, Stauch R, Krell D, Falkai P, Bogerts B (2003) Volumes of association thalamic nuclei in schizophrenia: a postmortem study. Schizophr Res 60:141–155
Ellison-Wright I, Glahn DC, Laird AR, Thelen SM, Bullmore E (2008) The anatomy of first-episode and chronic schizophrenia: an anatomical likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Am J Psychiatry 165:1015–1023
Eykelenboom JE, Briggs GJ, Bradshaw NJ, Soares DC, Ogawa F, Christie S, Malavasi EL, Makedonopoulou P, Mackie S, Malloy MP, Wear MA, Blackburn EA, Bramham J, McIntosh AM, Blackwood DH, Muir WJ, Porteous DJ, Millar JK (2012) A t(1;11) translocation linked to schizophrenia and affective disorders gives rise to aberrant chimeric DISC1 transcripts that encode structurally altered, deleterious mitochondrial proteins. Hum Mol Genet 21:3374–3386
Franklin K, Paxinos G (2008) The mouse brain in stereotaxic coordinates. Academic Press, New York
Glantz LA, Lewis DA (2000) Decreased dendritic spine density on prefrontal cortical pyramidal neurons in schizophrenia. Arch Gen Psychiatry 57:65–73
Goldman-Rakic PS (1994) Working memory dysfunction in schizophrenia. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 6:348–357
Golowasch J, Thomas G, Taylor AL, Patel A, Pineda A, Khalil C, Nadim F (2009) Membrane capacitance measurements revisited: dependence of capacitance value on measurement method in nonisopotential neurons. J Neurophysiol 102:2161–2175
Hayashi-Takagi A, Takaki M, Graziane N, Seshadri S, Murdoch H, Dunlop AJ, Makino Y, Seshadri AJ, Ishizuka K, Srivastava DP, Xie Z, Baraban JM, Houslay MD, Tomoda T, Brandon NJ, Kamiya A, Yan Z, Penzes P, Sawa A (2010) Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) regulates spines of the glutamate synapse via Rac1. Nat Neurosci 13:327–332
Hennah W, Tuulio-Henriksson A, Paunio T, Ekelund J, Varilo T, Partonen T, Cannon TD, Lönnqvist J, Peltonen L (2005) A haplotype within the DISC1 gene is associated with visual memory functions in families with a high density of schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry 10:1097–1103
Hikida T, Jaaro-Peled H, Seshadri S, Oishi K, Hookway C, Kong S, Wu D, Xue R, Andrade M, Tankou S, Mori S, Gallagher M, Ishizuka K, Pletnikov M, Kida S, Sawa A (2007) Dominant-negative DISC1 transgenic mice display schizophrenia-associated phenotypes detected by measures translatable to humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:14501–14506
Ibi D, Nagai T, Koike H, Kitahara Y, Mizoguchi H, Niwa M, Jaaro-Peled H, Nitta A, Yoneda Y, Nabeshima T, Sawa A, Yamada K (2010) Combined effect of neonatal immune activation and mutant DISC1 on phenotypic changes in adulthood. Behav Brain Res 206:32–37
Ishizuka K, Kamiya A, Oh EC, Kanki H, Seshadri S, Robinson JF, Murdoch H, Dunlop AJ, Kubo K, Furukori K, Huang B, Zeledon M, Hayashi-Takagi A, Okano H, Nakajima K, Houslay MD, Katsanis N, Sawa A (2011) DISC1-dependent switch from progenitor proliferation to migration in the developing cortex. Nature 473:92–96
Jaaro-Peled H, Hayashi-Takagi A, Seshadri S, Kamiya A, Brandon NJ, Sawa A (2009) Neurodevelopmental mechanisms of schizophrenia: understanding disturbed postnatal brain maturation through neuregulin-1-ErbB4 and DISC1. Trends Neurosci 32:485–495
Kamiya A, Kubo K, Tomoda T, Takaki M, Youn R, Ozeki Y, Sawamura N, Park U, Kudo C, Okawa M, Ross CA, Hatten ME, Nakajima K, Sawa A (2005) A schizophrenia-associated mutation of DISC1 perturbs cerebral cortex development. Nat Cell Biol 7:1167–1178
Kapfhamer D, Berger KH, Hopf FW, Seif T, Kharazia V, Bonci A, Heberlein U (2010) Protein phosphatase 2a and glycogen synthase kinase 3 signaling modulate prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response by altering cortical M-type potassium channel activity. J Neurosci 30:8830–88340
Koike H, Arguello PA, Kvajo M, Karayiorgou M, Gogos JA (2006) Disc1 is mutated in the 129S6/SvEv strain and modulates working memory in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:3693–3697
Kolluri N, Sun Z, Sampson AR, Lewis DA (2005) Lamina-specific reductions in dendritic spine density in the prefrontal cortex of subjects with schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 162:1200–1202
Komendantov AO, Ascoli GA (2009) Dendritic excitability and neuronal morphology as determinants of synaptic efficacy. J Neurophysiol 101:1847–1866
Kreczmanski P, Heinsen H, Mantua V, Woltersdorf F, Masson T, Ulfig N, Schmidt-Kastner R, Korr H, Steinbusch HW, Hof PR, Schmitz C (2007) Volume, neuron density and total neuron number in five subcortical regions in schizophrenia. Brain 130:678–692
Kvajo M, McKellar H, Arguello PA, Drew LJ, Moore H, MacDermott AB, Karayiorgou M, Gogos JA (2008) A mutation in mouse Disc1 that models a schizophrenia risk allele leads to specific alterations in neuronal architecture and cognition. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:7076–7081
Kvajo M, McKellar H, Drew LJ, Lepagnol-Bestel AM, Xiao L, Levy RJ, Blazeski R, Arguello PA, Lacefield CO, Mason CA, Simonneau M, O’Donnell JM, MacDermott AB, Karayiorgou M, Gogos JA (2011) Altered axonal targeting and short-term plasticity in the hippocampus of Disc1 mutant mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:E1349–E1358
Le Strat Y, Ramoz N, Gorwood P (2009) The role of genes involved in neuroplasticity and neurogenesis in the observation of a gene-environment interaction (G×E) in schizophrenia. Curr Mol Med 9:506–518
Li W, Zhou Y, Jentsch JD, Brown RA, Tian X, Ehninger D, Hennah W, Peltonen L, Lonnqvist J, Huttunen MO, Kaprio J, Trachtenberg JT, Silva AJ, Cannon TD (2007) Specific developmental disruption of disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 function results in schizophrenia-related phenotypes in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:18280–18285
Li B, Chen F, Ye J, Chen X, Yan J, Li Y, Xiong Y, Zhou Z, Xia J, Hu Z (2010) The modulation of orexin A on HCN currents of pyramidal neurons in mouse prelimbic cortex. Cereb Cortex 20:1756–1767
Liao CC, Lee LJ (2011) Neonatal fluoxetine exposure affects the action potential properties and dendritic development in cortical subplate neurons of rats. Toxicol Lett 207:314–321
Liao CC, Lee LJ (2012) Evidence for structural and functional changes of subplate neurons in developing rat barrel cortex. Brain Struct Funct 217:275–292
Mackie S, Millar JK, Porteous DJ (2007) Role of DISC1 in neural development and schizophrenia. Curr Opin Neurobiol 17:95–102
Manoach DS (2003) Prefrontal cortex dysfunction during working memory performance in schizophrenia: reconciling discrepant findings. Schizophr Res 60:285–298
Mao Y, Ge X, Frank CL, Madison JM, Koehler AN, Doud MK, Tassa C, Berry EM, Soda T, Singh KK, Biechele T, Petryshen TL, Moon RT, Haggarty SJ, Tsai LH (2009) Disrupted in schizophrenia 1 regulates neuronal progenitor proliferation via modulation of GSK3beta/beta-catenin signaling. Cell 136:1017–1031
Mei L, Xiong WC (2008) Neuregulin 1 in neural development, synaptic plasticity and schizophrenia. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:437–452
Meyer-Lindenberg A (2010) From maps to mechanisms through neuroimaging of schizophrenia. Nature 468:194–202
Millar JK, Wilson-Annan JC, Anderson S, Christie S, Taylor MS, Semple CA, Devon RS, St Clair DM, Muir WJ, Blackwood DH, Porteous DJ (2000) Disruption of two novel genes by a translocation co-segregating with schizophrenia. Hum Mol Genet 9:1415–1423
Millar JK, Pickard BS, Mackie S, James R, Christie S, Buchanan SR, Malloy MP, Chubb JE, Huston E, Baillie GS, Thomson PA, Hill EV, Brandon NJ, Rain JC, Camargo LM, Whiting PJ, Houslay MD, Blackwood DH, Muir WJ, Porteous DJ (2005) DISC1 and PDE4B are interacting genetic factors in schizophrenia that regulate cAMP signaling. Science 310:1187–1191
Moghaddam B, Homayoun H (2008) Divergent plasticity of prefrontal cortex networks. Neuropsychopharmacology 33:42–55
Nataraj K, Le Roux N, Nahmani M, Lefort S, Turrigiano G (2010) Visual deprivation suppresses L5 pyramidal neuron excitability by preventing the induction of intrinsic plasticity. Neuron 68:750–762
Niwa M, Kamiya A, Murai R, Kubo K, Gruber AJ, Tomita K, Lu L, Tomisato S, Jaaro-Peled H, Seshadri S, Hiyama H, Huang B, Kohda K, Noda Y, O’Donnell P, Nakajima K, Sawa A, Nabeshima T (2010) Knockdown of DISC1 by in utero gene transfer disturbs postnatal dopaminergic maturation in the frontal cortex and leads to adult behavioral deficits. Neuron 65:480–489
Penzes P, Cahill ME, Jones KA, VanLeeuwen JE, Woolfrey KM (2011) Dendritic spine pathology in neuropsychiatric disorders. Nat Neurosci 14:285–293
Pletnikov MV, Ayhan Y, Nikolskaia O, Xu Y, Ovanesov MV, Huang H, Mori S, Moran TH, Ross CA (2008) Inducible expression of mutant human DISC1 in mice is associated with brain and behavioral abnormalities reminiscent of schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry 13:173–186
Robinson RB, Siegelbaum SA (2003) Hyperpolarization-activated cation currents: from molecules to physiological function. Annu Rev Physiol 65:453–480
Santini E, Porter JT (2010) M-type potassium channels modulate the intrinsic excitability of infralimbic neurons and regulate fear expression and extinction. J Neurosci 30:12379–12386
Schurov IL, Handford EJ, Brandon NJ, Whiting PJ (2004) Expression of disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) protein in the adult and developing mouse brain indicates its role in neurodevelopment. Mol Psychiatry 9:1100–1110
Shen S, Lang B, Nakamoto C, Zhang F, Pu J, Kuan SL, Chatzi C, He S, Mackie I, Brandon NJ, Marquis KL, Day M, Hurko O, McCaig CD, Riedel G, St Clair D (2008) Schizophrenia-related neural and behavioral phenotypes in transgenic mice expressing truncated Disc1. J Neurosci 28:10893–10904
Spruston N (2008) Pyramidal neurons: dendritic structure and synaptic integration. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:206–221
Steinecke A, Gampe C, Valkova C, Kaether C, Bolz J (2012) Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) is necessary for the correct migration of cortical interneurons. J Neurosci 32:738–745
Tan HY, Callicott JH, Weinberger DR (2007) Dysfunctional and compensatory prefrontal cortical systems, genes and the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Cereb Cortex 17(Suppl 1):i171–i181
Volk DW, Lewis DA (2010) Prefrontal cortical circuits in schizophrenia. Curr Top Behav Neurosci 4:485–508
Wang Q, Charych EI, Pulito VL, Lee JB, Graziane NM, Crozier RA, Revilla-Sanchez R, Kelly MP, Dunlop AJ, Murdoch H, Taylor N, Xie Y, Pausch M, Hayashi-Takagi A, Ishizuka K, Seshadri S, Bates B, Kariya K, Sawa A, Weinberg RJ, Moss SJ, Houslay MD, Yan Z, Brandon NJ (2011) The psychiatric disease risk factors DISC1 and TNIK interact to regulate synapse composition and function. Mol Psychiatry 16:1006–1023
Zhou X, Geyer MA, Kelsoe JR (2008) Does disrupted-in-schizophrenia (DISC1) generate fusion transcripts? Mol Psychiatry 13:361–363
Zhou X, Chen Q, Schaukowitch K, Kelsoe JR, Geyer MA (2010) Insoluble DISC1-Boymaw fusion proteins generated by DISC1 translocation. Mol Psychiatry 15:669–672
Zucker RS, Regehr WG (2002) Short-term synaptic plasticity. Annu Rev Physiol 64:355–405
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Science Council of the Republic of China, Grant numbers: NSC 98-2410-H-002-033 (to L.-J. L.), NSC 99-2628-B-002-052-MY3 (to L.-J. L.) and NSC99-2410-H-002-088-MY3 (to W.-S. L.).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
L.-W. Juan and C.-C. Liao contributed equally to this work.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Juan, LW., Liao, CC., Lai, WS. et al. Phenotypic characterization of C57BL/6J mice carrying the Disc1 gene from the 129S6/SvEv strain. Brain Struct Funct 219, 1417–1431 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-013-0577-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-013-0577-8