Exposure to folate receptor alpha antibodies during gestation and weaning leads to severe behavioral deficits in rats: A pilot study

Autor según el artículo: Sequeira, Jeffrey M; Desai, Ankuri; Berrocal-Zaragoza, Maria I; Murphy, Michelle M; Fernandez-Ballart, Joan D; Quadros, Edward V

Departamento: Ciències Mèdiques Bàsiques

Autor/es de la URV: BERROCAL ZARAGOZA, MA. ISABEL / Fernández Ballart, Joan Domènech / Murphy, Michelle

Palabras clave: Weaning; Rats; Prenatal exposure delayed effects; Pregnancy; Pilot projects; Neural tube defects; Motor activity; Learning; Humans; Hippocampus; Good health and well-being; Folic acid; Folate receptor 1; Female; Cognition disorders; Behavior, animal; Autoantibodies; Animals, newborn; Animals

Resumen: © 2016 Sequeira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The central nervous system continues to develop during gestation and after birth, and folate is an essential nutrient in this process. Folate deficiency and folate receptor alpha autoantibodies (FRα-AuAb) have been associated with pregnancy-related complications and neurodevelopmental disorders. In this pilot study, we investigated the effect of exposure to FRα antibodies (Ab) during gestation (GST), the pre-weaning (PRW), and the post weaning (POW) periods on learning and behavior in adulthood in a rat model. In the open field test and novel object recognition task, which examine locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior, deficits in rats exposed to Ab during gestation and pre-weaning (GST+PRW) included more time spent in the periphery or corner areas, less time in the central area, frequent self-grooming akin to stereotypy, and longer time to explore a novel object compared to a control group; these are all indicative of increased levels of anxiety. In the place avoidance tasks that assess learning and spatial memory formation, only 30% of GST+PRW rats were able to learn the passive place avoidance task. None of these rats learned the active place avoidance task indicating severe learning deficits and cognitive impairment. Similar but less severe deficits were observed in rats exposed to Ab during GST alone or only during the PRW period, suggesting the extreme sensitivity of the fetal as well as the neonatal rat brain to the deleterious effects of exposure to Ab during this period. Behavioral deficits were not seen in rats exposed to antibody post weaning. These observations have implications in the pathology of FRα-AuAb associated with neural tube defect pregnancy, preterm birth and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism.

Áreas temáticas: Zootecnia / recursos pesqueiros; Sociology; Sociología; Serviço social; Saúde coletiva; Química; Psychology; Psicología; Planejamento urbano e regional / demografia; Odontología; Nutrição; Multidisciplinary sciences; Multidisciplinary; Medicine (miscellaneous); Medicina veterinaria; Medicina iii; Medicina ii; Medicina i; Materiais; Matemática / probabilidade e estatística; Linguística e literatura; Letras / linguística; Interdisciplinary research in the social sciences; Interdisciplinar; Human geography and urban studies; History & philosophy of science; Historia; Geografía; Geociências; General medicine; General biochemistry,genetics and molecular biology; General agricultural and biological sciences; Farmacia; Environmental studies; Ensino; Engenharias iv; Engenharias iii; Engenharias ii; Engenharias i; Enfermagem; Educação física; Educação; Economia; Direito; Demography; Comunicação e informação; Ciências sociais aplicadas i; Ciências biológicas iii; Ciências biológicas ii; Ciências biológicas i; Ciências ambientais; Ciências agrárias i; Ciência política e relações internacionais; Ciência de alimentos; Ciência da computação; Biotecnología; Biology; Biodiversidade; Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (miscellaneous); Astronomia / física; Arquitetura, urbanismo e design; Archaeology; Antropologia / arqueologia; Anthropology; Agricultural and biological sciences (miscellaneous); Administração, ciências contábeis e turismo; Administração pública e de empresas, ciências contábeis e turismo

Acceso a la licencia de uso: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

ISSN: 19326203

Direcció de correo del autor: michelle.murphy@urv.cat

Fecha de alta del registro: 2025-02-01

Versión del articulo depositado: info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Enlace a la fuente original: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0152249

URL Documento de licencia: https://repositori.urv.cat/ca/proteccio-de-dades/

Referencia al articulo segun fuente origial: Plos One. 11 (3): e0152249-e0152249

Referencia de l'ítem segons les normes APA: Sequeira, Jeffrey M; Desai, Ankuri; Berrocal-Zaragoza, Maria I; Murphy, Michelle M; Fernandez-Ballart, Joan D; Quadros, Edward V (2016). Exposure to folate receptor alpha antibodies during gestation and weaning leads to severe behavioral deficits in rats: A pilot study. Plos One, 11(3), e0152249-e0152249. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152249

DOI del artículo: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152249

Entidad: Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Año de publicación de la revista: 2016

Tipo de publicación: Journal Publications