Abstract
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social deficits and repetitive behaviors. Genetic screening has identified synaptic, transcriptional, and chromatin genes disrupted in autistic patients. Haploinsufficiency of Shank3, which encodes a scaffold protein at glutamatergic synapses, is causally linked to autism. Using a Shank3-deficient mouse model that exhibits prominent autism-like phenotypes, we have found that histone acetylation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is abnormally low, which can be reversed by MS-275 (also known as Entinostat, SNDX-275), a class I histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor that is selectively potent in PFC. A brief (3-day) treatment with MS-275 (i.p.) led to the sustained (11 days) rescue of autistic social preference deficits in Shank3-deficient mice, without altering locomotion, motor coordination, anxiety, or the increased grooming. MS-275 treatment also rescued the diminished NMDAR surface expression and NMDAR function induced by Shank3 deficiency. Moreover, F-actin at synapses was restored and the transcription of actin regulators was elevated by MS-275 treatment of Shank3-deficient mice, which may contribute to the recovery of actin-based NMDAR synaptic delivery. Taken together, these results suggest that MS-275 treatment could normalize the aberrant epigenetic regulation of genes, leading to the amelioration of synaptic and social deficits associated with autism.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Xiaoqing Chen for her excellent technical support.
Funding
This work was supported by Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation and National Institutes of Health (R41-MH112237, R01-MH108842 and R01-DA037618) to ZY.
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The authors declare no competing interests. Z.Y. is the founder of ASDDR LLC.
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Ma, K., Qin, L., Matas, E. et al. Histone deacetylase inhibitor MS-275 restores social and synaptic function in a Shank3-deficient mouse model of autism. Neuropsychopharmacol 43, 1779–1788 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0073-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0073-1
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