Fig. 3
From: Estrogen receptor α drives pro-resilient transcription in mouse models of depression
ERα overexpression in NAc induces antidepressant-like effects in CSDS in male mice. a Timeline for CSDS experiment. b Location of targeted site within the NAc for viral-mediated gene transfer and IHC validation of viral expression (magenta) against DAPI background (blue). c Male mice show significant (χ2(7) = 23.67, P < 0.001, n = 10,8,8,9) group differences in time spent in the interaction zone in the social interaction test. Defeated AAV-GFP mice, but not any other group, spend less time in the interaction zone when the CD1 aggressor is present than when the CD1 aggressor is absent (P < 0.001). Additionally defeated AAV-GFP mice spend less time in the interaction zone when the CD1 aggressor is present than control AAV-GFP mice (P < 0.001), control AAV-ESR1 mice (P < 0.001), and defeated AAV-ESR1 mice (P < 0.01). d There is a non-significant trend (χ2(3) = 7.72, P < 0.052, n = 9,8,8,8) towards altered sucrose preference in the sucrose preference test with defeated AAV-ESR1 mice consuming significantly (P < 0.05) more sucrose than defeated AAV-GFP mice. e, f CSDS (F(1,32) = 2.96, P < 0.095; n = 10,8,9,9) and ERα overexpression (F(1,32) = 0.05, P < 0.822) do not have an effect on time spent in the center in the open field test or latency to immobility (χ2(3) = 5.76, P < 0.124, n = 9,8,7,9) in the forced swim test. Data are represented as mean ± SEM. c, d, f Kruskal–Wallis test. e One-way ANOVA. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 post hoc independent-samples Mann–Whitney
