The prolonged effects of maternal immune activation in response stressors
during gestation on the offspring’s molecular pathways after birth are beginning
to be understood. An association between maternal immune activation and neurodevelopmental and behavior
disorders such as autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders has been detected
in long-term gene dysregulation. The incidence of alternative splicing among
neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptor genes, critical cell-cell signaling
molecules, associated with behavior may compromise the replicability of reported
maternal immune activation effects at the gene level. This study aims to advance the understanding of
the effect of maternal immune activation on transcript isoforms of the neuropeptide system (including
neuropeptide, receptor and connecting pathway genes) underlying behavior
disorders later in life. Recognizing the wide range of bioactive peptides and
functional receptors stemming from alternative splicing, we studied the effects
of maternal immune activation at the transcript isoform level on the hippocampus and amygdala of
three-week-old pigs exposed to maternal immune activation due to viral infection during gestation. In
the hippocampus and amygdala, 29 and 9 transcript isoforms, respectively, had maternal immune activation effects
(P-value
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Original Research
Effects of maternal immune activation in porcine transcript isoforms of neuropeptide and receptor genes
Bruce R. Southey1,*, Pan Zhang2, Marissa R. Keever1, Haley E. Rymut1, Rodney W. Johnson1,3, Jonathan V. Sweedler3,4, Sandra L. Rodriguez-Zas1,2,3,5,*
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1
Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801 IL, USA
2
Illinois Informatics Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801 IL, USA
3
Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801 IL, USA
4
Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801 IL, USA
5
Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801 IL, USA
*Correspondence: southey@illinois.edu (Bruce R. Southey); rodrgzzs@illinois.edu (Sandra L. Rodriguez-Zas)
J. Integr. Neurosci. 2021, 20(1), 21–31;
https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin.2021.01.332
Submitted: 14 October 2020 | Revised: 11 December 2020 | Accepted: 9 February 2021 | Published: 30 March 2021
Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract
Keywords
Maternal immune activation
Neuropeptide
Autism
Alternative splicing
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