Effects of environmental enrichment on cognitive behavior and the expression of adenosine triphosphate binding cassette transporter A7 in hippocampus of adolescent mice with high fat diet.

OBJECTIVES:To investigate the effects of environmental enrichment on cognitive behavior and the expression of adenosine triphosphate binding cassette transporter A7 (ABCA7) in hippocampus of the adolescent mice with high fat diet. METHODS:A total of healthy 3-week-old male C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into 3 groups: a control (Con) group, a high fat diet (HFD) group, and a high fat diet+environmental enrichment (HFD+EE) group, with 10 mice in each group. The Con group was given normal diet. The HFD group was given high fat diet. The HFD+EE group was given high fat diet; at the same time, they treated by environmental enrichment. After 10 weeks, open field test was used to detect activity. Novel object recognition test and Y maze test were used to detect cognitive behavior. After the test, the brain was collected and used to detect the protein expression of ABCA7 in the hippocampus by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. And quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) was used to detect the ABCA7 mRNA expression level in the hippocampus. RESULTS:There was no significant difference in the total movement distance in the mice among the 3 groups (P>0.05). In the novel object recognition test, the discrimination index of the HFD group was much lower than that of the Con group, and the difference was significant (P<0.01). The discrimination index of the HFD+EE group was higher than that of the HFD group, and the difference was significant (P<0.01). In the Y maze test, there was no significant difference in the percentage of time spent on the new arm among the mice in the 3 groups (P=0.1279). The percentage of entries in new arm in the HFD group was much lower than that in the Con group, and the difference was significant (P<0.01). The percentage of the entries in new arm in the HFD+EE group was significantly higher than that in the HFD group (P<0.05). The results of immunohistochemistry showed that ABCA7 was positively expressed in the cytoplasm of hippocampal neurons in the mice from these 3 groups, and the expression of ABCA7 in the hippocampus of the HFD group was lower than that of the Con group (CA1: P<0.01, CA3: P=0.06), while the expression of ABCA7 in hippocampus of HFD+EE group was higher than that of HFD group (CA1: P=0.23, CA3: P<0.05). Western blotting results showed that compared with the Con group, the protein level of ABCA7 in the hippocampus of the HFD group was significantly reduced (P<0.05), while compared with the Con group, the protein level of ABCA7 in the hippocampus of the HFD+EE group showed an upward trend (P=0.06). The results of RT-qPCR showed that the mRNA level of ABCA7 in the hippocampus of HFD group was significantly lower than that of the Con group (P<0.01), while the mRNA level of ABCA7 in the hippocampus of HFD+EE group was significantly higher than that of the HFD group (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS:High fat diet in adolescent can impair cognitive function with a decrease in the expression of ABCA7 in hippocampus, which can be ameliorate by environmental enrichment.

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