An epigenetic mechanism mediates developmental nicotine effects on neuronal structure and behavior

Developmental nicotine exposure causes persistent changes in cortical neuron morphology and in behavior. We used microarray screening to identify master transcriptional or epigenetic regulators mediating these effects of nicotine and discovered increases in Ash2lmRNA, encoding a component of a histone methyltransferase complex. We therefore examined genome-wide changes in trimethylation of histone H3 on Lys4 (H3K4me3), a mark induced by the Ash2l complex associated with increased gene transcription. A large proportion of regulated promoter sites were involved in synapse maintenance. We found that Mef2c interacts with Ash2l and mediates changes in H3K4me3. Knockdown of Ash2l or Mef2c abolished nicotine-mediated alterations of dendritic complexity in vitro and in vivo, and attenuated nicotine-dependent changes in passive avoidance behavior. In contrast, overexpression mimicked nicotine-mediated alterations of neuronal structure and passive avoidance behavior. These studies identify Ash2l as a target induced by nicotinic stimulation that couples developmental nicotine exposure to changes in brain epigenetic marks, neuronal structure and behavior

Collapsin response mediator protein-2 regulates neurite formation by modulating tubulin GTPase activity

Collapsin response mediator protein-2 (CRMP-2) plays a key role in axonal development by regulating microtubule dynamics. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this function have not been clearly elucidated. In this study, we demonstrated that hCRMP-2, specifically amino acid residues 480-509, is essential for stimulating tubulin GTPase activity. We also found that the GTPase-activating protein (GAP) activity of hCRMP-2 was important for microtubule assembly and neurite formation in differentiated PC12 pheochromocytoma cell lines. Mutant hCRMP-2, lacking arginine residues responsible for GAP activity, inhibited microtubule assembly and neurite formation. Interestingly, we found that the N-terminal region (amino acids 150-299) of hCRMP-2 had an inhibitory role on GAP activity via a direct interaction with the C-terminal region (amino acids 480-509). Our results suggest that CRMP-2 as a tubulin direct binder may be a GAP of tubulin in neurite formation and that its CAP activity may be regulated by an intramolecular interaction with an N-terminal inhibitory region.close252