Trib3 is developmentally and nutritionally regulated in the brain but is dispensable for spatial memory, fear conditioning and sensing of amino acid-imbalanced diet

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 14;9(4):e94691. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094691. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Tribbles homolog 3 (TRIB3) is a mammalian pseudokinase that is induced in neuronal cell cultures in response to cell death-inducing stresses, including neurotrophic factor deprivation. TRIB3 is an inhibitor of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), the central transcriptional regulator in the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) phosphorylation pathway that is involved in the cellular stress response and behavioral processes. In this article, we study the expression of Trib3 in the mouse brain, characterize the brain morphology of mice with a genetic ablation of Trib3 and investigate whether Trib3 deficiency alters eIF2α-dependent cognitive abilities. Our data show that the consumption of a leucine-deficient diet induces Trib3 expression in the anterior piriform cortex, the brain region responsible for detecting essential amino acid intake imbalance. However, the aversive response to leucine-devoid diet does not differ in Trib3 knockout and wild type mice. Trib3 deletion also does not affect long-term spatial memory and reversal learning in the Morris water maze and auditory or contextual fear conditioning. During embryonic development, Trib3 expression increases in the brain and persists in the early postnatal stadium. Neuroanatomical characterization of mice lacking Trib3 revealed enlarged lateral ventricles. Thus, although the absence of Trib3 does not alter the eIF2α pathway-dependent cognitive functions of several areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, amygdala and anterior piriform cortex, Trib3 may serve a role in other central nervous system processes and molecular pathways.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acids / metabolism*
  • Animals
  • Brain / embryology
  • Brain / metabolism*
  • Cell Cycle Proteins / metabolism*
  • Conditioning, Classical
  • Diet
  • Fear*
  • Gene Deletion
  • Gene Expression Regulation
  • Leucine / metabolism
  • Male
  • Maze Learning
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Mice, Knockout
  • Phosphorylation
  • Signal Transduction
  • Spatial Memory*

Substances

  • Amino Acids
  • Cell Cycle Proteins
  • TRB3 protein, mouse
  • Leucine

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by Grants 7683 and 8408 from the Estonian Science Foundation, the long-term research programs SF0180175, SF0180148s08 and SF0180019s11 of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, Grant 269 of the personal research funding program of the Estonian Research Council, and the European Regional Development Fund and the Archimedes Foundation through the Center of Excellence in Chemical Biology and the Centre of Excellence for Translational Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.