{"id":98726,"date":"2019-11-18T05:42:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T13:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/life-long-epigenetic-programming-of-cortical-architecture"},"modified":"2019-11-18T05:42:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T13:42:35","slug":"life-long-epigenetic-programming-of-cortical-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/life-long-epigenetic-programming-of-cortical-architecture","title":{"rendered":"Life-long epigenetic programming of cortical architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/life-long-epigenetic-programming-of-cortical-architecture.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The evolution of human diets led to preferences toward polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content with \u2018Western\u2019 diets enriched in \u03c9-6 PUFAs. Mounting evidence points to \u03c9-6 PUFA excess limiting metabolic and cognitive processes that define longevity in humans. When chosen during pregnancy, \u03c9-6 PUFA-enriched \u2018Western\u2019 diets can reprogram maternal bodily metabolism with maternal nutrient supply precipitating the body-wide imprinting of molecular and cellular adaptations at the level of long-range intercellular signaling networks in the unborn fetus. Even though unfavorable neurological outcomes are amongst the most common complications of intrauterine \u03c9-6 PUFA excess, cellular underpinnings of life-long modifications to brain architecture remain unknown. Here, we show that nutritional \u03c9-6 PUFA-derived endocannabinoids desensitize CB1 cannabinoid receptors, thus inducing epigenetic repression of transcriptional regulatory networks controlling neuronal differentiation. We found that cortical neurons lose their positional identity and axonal selectivity when mouse fetuses are exposed to excess \u03c9-6 PUFAs in utero. Conversion of \u03c9-6 PUFAs into endocannabinoids disrupted the temporal precision of signaling at neuronal CB1 cannabinoid receptors, chiefly deregulating Stat3-dependent transcriptional cascades otherwise required to execute neuronal differentiation programs. Global proteomics identified the immunoglobulin family of cell adhesion molecules (IgCAMs) as direct substrates, with DNA methylation and chromatin accessibility profiling uncovering epigenetic reprogramming at 1400 sites in neurons after prolonged cannabinoid exposure. We found anxiety and depression-like behavioral traits to manifest in adult offspring, which is consistent with genetic models of reduced IgCAM expression, to suggest causality for cortical wiring defects. Overall, our data uncover a regulatory mechanism whose disruption by maternal food choices could limit an offspring\u2019s brain function for life.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul class=\"\" data-test=\"article-identifier\">\n<li class=\"\">Immediate Communication<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">Published: 18 November 2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"\" data-etal=\"25\" data-etal-small=\"3\" data-test=\"authors-list\">\n<li class=\"\" itemprop=\"author\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\"> Valentina Cinquina <sup class=\u201d u-js-hide\u201d>1<\/sup>, <\/li>\n<li class=\"\" itemprop=\"author\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\"> Daniela Calvigioni <sup class=\u201d u-js-hide\u201d>1<\/sup>, <\/li> &lt;li class=\u201d\u201d itemprop=\u201cauthor\u201d itemscope=\u201citemscope\u201d itemtype=\u201chttp:\/\/schema.[\/ul&gt; <\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The evolution of human diets led to preferences toward polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content with \u2018Western\u2019 diets enriched in \u03c9-6 PUFAs. Mounting evidence points to \u03c9-6 PUFA excess limiting metabolic and cognitive processes that define longevity in humans. When chosen during pregnancy, \u03c9-6 PUFA-enriched \u2018Western\u2019 diets can reprogram maternal bodily metabolism with maternal nutrient supply [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,385,1506,412,269,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-evolution","category-food","category-genetics","category-life-extension","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}