Sexual behavior and testis morphology in the BACHD rat model
| العنوان: | Sexual behavior and testis morphology in the BACHD rat model |
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| المؤلفون: | Novati, Arianna, Yu-Taeger, Libo, Gonzalez Menendez, Irene, Quintanilla Martinez, Leticia, Nguyen, Huu Phuc |
| المصدر: | PLoS ONE PLoS ONE, Vol 13, Iss 6, p e0198338 (2018) |
| سنة النشر: | 2018 |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | Male, Physiology, lcsh:Medicine, Epithelium, Sexual Behavior, Animal, Animal Cells, Testis, Medicine and Health Sciences, lcsh:Science, Animal Management, Mammals, Huntingtin Protein, Eukaryota, Brain, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Agriculture, Animal Models, Huntington Disease, Experimental Organism Systems, Neurology, Genetic Diseases, Vertebrates, Female, Rats, Transgenic, Anatomy, Cellular Types, Research Article, Research and Analysis Methods, Rodents, Model Organisms, Animals, Humans, Ejaculation, Clinical Genetics, Behavior, Animal Performance, Sertoli Cells, lcsh:R, Autosomal Dominant Diseases, Organisms, Biology and Life Sciences, Epithelial Cells, Cell Biology, Corpus Striatum, Rats, Neostriatum, Disease Models, Animal, Biological Tissue, Mutation, Amniotes, lcsh:Q, Human Sexual Behavior, Physiological Processes |
| الوصف: | \(\bf Background\) Huntington disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by a mutation in the huntingtin (HTT) gene, which results in brain neurodegeneration and peripheral pathology affecting different organs including testis. Patients with HD suffer from motor and cognitive impairment, and multiple psychiatric symptoms. Among behavioral abnormalities in HD, sexual disturbances have often been reported, but scarcely investigated in animal models. The BACHD rat model of HD carries the human full-length mutated HTT (mHTT) genomic sequence with 97 CAG-CAA repeats and displays HD-like alterations at neuropathological and behavioral level. \(\bf Objective\) This study aims to phenotype the BACHD rats’ sexual behavior and performance as well as testis morphology because alterations in these aspects have been associated to HD. \(\bf Methods\) Two rat cohorts at the age of 3 and 7 months were subjected to mating tests to assess different parameters of sexual behavior. Histological analyses for testis morphology were performed in different rat cohorts at 1.5, 7 and 12 months of age whereas immunohistochemical analyses were carried out at 7 and 12 months of age to visualize the presence of mHTT in testicular tissue. Furthermore, western blot analyses were used to assess HTT and mHTT expression levels in striatum and testis at three months of age. \(\bf Results\) At 3 months, BACHD rats showed a decreased time exploring the female anogenital area (AGA), decreased latency to mount, increased number of intromissions and ejaculations and enhanced hit rate. At 7 months, all sexual parameters were comparable between genotypes with the exception that BACHD rats explored the AGA less than wild type rats. Testis analyses did not reveal any morphological alteration at any of the examined ages, but showed presence of mHTT limited to Sertoli cells in transgenic rats at both 7 and 12 months. BACHD rat HTT and mHTT expression levels in testis were lower than striatum at 3 months of age. \(\bf Conclusions\) The testis phenotype in the BACHD rat model does not mimic the changes observed in human HD testis. The altered sexual behavior in BACHD rats at three months of age could be to a certain extent representative of and share common underlying pathways with some of the sexual disturbances in HD patients. Further investigating the biological causes of the sexual phenotype in BACHD rats may therefore contribute to clarifying the mechanisms at the base of sexual behavior changes in HD. |
| وصف الملف: | application/pdf |
| تدمد: | 1932-6203 |
| الوصول الحر: | https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=pmid_dedup__::449c2d2173c388ef618a0972045d1fe3Test https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29883458Test |
| حقوق: | OPEN |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsair.pmid.dedup....449c2d2173c388ef618a0972045d1fe3 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | OpenAIRE |
| تدمد: | 19326203 |
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