Animal study shows gene editing reverses brain genetic reprogramming caused by adolescent binge drinking.
Animal study shows gene editing reverses brain genetic reprogramming caused by adolescent binge drinking. Gene editing may be a potential treatment for anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adults who were exposed to binge drinking in their adolescence, according to the results of an animal study published in the journal Science Advances. The study is issued by researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago who have been studying the effects of early life binge drinking on health later in life. In prior research, the UIC team found that binge drinking in adolescence alters brain chemistry at the enhancer region of the Arc gene - for activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein immediate-early gene - and decreases Arc expression in the amygdala of both rodents and humans. This epigenetic reprogramming of the Arc gene in the brain's emotion and memory center contributes to a predisposition to anxiety and alcohol use disorder in adulthood. In the new study, the researchers show that this epigenetic reprogramming, which persists throughout life, actually can be reversed with gene editing. -Early binge drinking can have long-lasting and significant effects on the brain and the results of this study offer evidence that gene editing is a potential antidote to these effects, offering a kind of factory reset for the brain, if you will,- said study senior author Subhash Pandey, the Joseph A. Flaherty Endowed Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics at UIC.
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