eLife (Sep 2019)

Light-at-night exposure affects brain development through pineal allopregnanolone-dependent mechanisms

  • Shogo Haraguchi,
  • Masaki Kamata,
  • Takuma Tokita,
  • Kei-ichiro Tashiro,
  • Miku Sato,
  • Mitsuki Nozaki,
  • Mayumi Okamoto-Katsuyama,
  • Isao Shimizu,
  • Guofeng Han,
  • Vishwajit Sur Chowdhury,
  • Xiao-Feng Lei,
  • Takuro Miyazaki,
  • Joo-ri Kim-Kaneyama,
  • Tomoya Nakamachi,
  • Kouhei Matsuda,
  • Hirokazu Ohtaki,
  • Toshinobu Tokumoto,
  • Tetsuya Tachibana,
  • Akira Miyazaki,
  • Kazuyoshi Tsutsui

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45306
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

Read online

The molecular mechanisms by which environmental light conditions affect cerebellar development are incompletely understood. We showed that circadian disruption by light-at-night induced Purkinje cell death through pineal allopregnanolone (ALLO) activity during early life in chicks. Light-at-night caused the loss of diurnal variation of pineal ALLO synthesis during early life and led to cerebellar Purkinje cell death, which was suppressed by a daily injection of ALLO. The loss of diurnal variation of pineal ALLO synthesis induced not only reduction in pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP), a neuroprotective hormone, but also transcriptional repression of the cerebellar Adcyap1 gene that produces PACAP, with subsequent Purkinje cell death. Taken together, pineal ALLO mediated the effect of light on early cerebellar development in chicks.

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