Gene expression profiling in the human alcoholic brain.
- Authors
- Warden, Anna S; Mayfield, R Dayne
- Year
- 2017
- Journal
- Neuropharmacology
- PMID
- 28254370
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2017.02.017
- PMCID
- PMC5479716
Long-term alcohol use causes widespread changes in gene expression in the human brain. Aberrant gene expression changes likely contribute to the progression from occasional alcohol use to alcohol use disorder (including alcohol dependence). Transcriptome studies have identified individual gene candidates that are linked to alcohol-dependence phenotypes. The use of bioinformatics techniques to examine expression datasets has provided novel systems-level approaches to transcriptome profiling in human postmortem brain. These analytical advances, along with recent developments in next-generation sequencing technology, have been instrumental in detecting both known and novel coding and non-coding RNAs, alternative splicing events, and cell-type specific changes that may contribute to alcohol-related pathologies. This review offers an integrated perspective on alcohol-responsive transcriptional changes in the human brain underlying the regulatory gene networks that contribute to alcohol dependence. This article is part of the Special Issue entitled "Alcoholism".
A hypothetical diagram for the role of transcriptional regulation in AUD. Chronic alcohol consumption can alter regulation of transcription via epigenetic modifications, including miRNAs and lncRNAs. Alterations in these regulatory mechanisms result in aberrant downstream gene expression changes in functional systems known to contribute to alcohol dependence (e.g. neuronal transmission, ion channels, immune signaling, stress response).
LLM interpretation
This is a conceptual diagram illustrating the proposed mechanism by which chronic alcohol consumption leads to Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). The flowchart shows that chronic alcohol consumption causes alterations in the regulation of transcription via three pathways: epigenetic markers/histone modifications, miRNAs, and long non-coding RNAs. These regulatory changes lead to aberrant gene expression changes across various biological systems (e.g., neurotransmission, stress and immune signaling, metabolism), ultimately resulting in AUD.
Total tissue versus cell-type specific analyses. Left Panel: Example volcano plot from an analysis of a cell-type specific isolation. The wider distribution of the plot signifies a greater number of statistically significant differentially expressed genes associated with chronic alcohol exposure. Right Panel: Example volcano plot from an analysis of a total tissue preparation. Note the smaller distribution and fewer statistically significant differentially expressed genes. Example data source: (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brennanpincardiff/RforBiochemists/master/data/microArrayData.tsv”).
LLM interpretation
This figure consists of two volcano plots comparing gene expression changes associated with chronic alcohol exposure. The x-axis represents the $\log_2$ fold change and the y-axis represents the $-\log_{10}$ p-value. The left panel (cell-type specific isolation) shows a wider distribution of points with a higher density of statistically significant genes (blue) compared to the right panel (total tissue preparation), which exhibits a smaller distribution and fewer significant genes.
RNA-seq systems approach for understanding alcohol dependence. Sequencing can be used to evaluate changes in regulation of DNA and RNA expression in human alcoholic and control cases. Information from sequencing can then be superimposed with other variables such as protein data, physiological function, or other phenotypic information to identify mechanisms and potential treatment options for AUD. Adapted from (Farris and Mayfield, 2014).
LLM interpretation
This is a conceptual diagram illustrating a systems biology approach to understanding alcohol use disorder (AUD) in the human brain. The figure displays a hierarchical flow of biological information across six levels: DNA regulation/epigenetics, RNA expression, RNA regulation (lncRNAs, miRNAs), protein expression, anatomical-physiological data, and phenotypes. Interconnected nodes and vertical dashed lines indicate the integration of data across these different molecular and physiological layers, with additional external influences noted as other tissues, environment, and the microbiome.
| # | Section | Preview |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.1: Epigenetic modifications in the human alcoholic brain | In addition to altered DNA methylation, histone modifications are also prevalent in human alcoholic… |
| 21 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.1: Epigenetic modifications in the human alcoholic brain | (Alaux-Cantin et al., 2013; Sakharkar et al., 2014). Treatment with the HDAC inhibitor sodium… |
| 22 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.1: Epigenetic modifications in the human alcoholic brain | The findings outlined above suggest that epigenetic alterations within addiction-related brain… |
| 23 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | Protein-coding genes have traditionally been the most well-studied sequences in the human genome;… |
| 24 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | up a large portion of the genome (Carninci et al., 2005; Consortium, 2012; Farris et al., 2015a),… |
| 25 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | miRNAs were significantly up-regulated in the frontal cortex of human alcoholics (Lewohl et al.,… |
| 26 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | through negative feedback loops involving down-regulation of IL-1 receptor-associated kinase 1… |
| 27 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | In addition to innate immune responses, the differentially expressed miRNAs identified in human… |
| 28 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | Up-regulated miRNAs in the frontal cortex of alcoholics are also involved in behavioral… |
| 29 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | Differentially expressed miRNAs have also been found in the nucleus accumbens of human alcoholics… |
| 30 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | (Lewohl et al., 2011). In the nucleus accumbens, down-regulation of the mir-34b/c family was… |
| 31 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.2: MicroRNAs as transcriptional regulators | An additional complexity of miRNA transcriptional regulation is that miRNAs can also regulate other… |
| 32 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.3: Long non-coding RNAs as transcriptional regulators | Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) also regulate transcription of RNA and may be important in AUD.… |
| 33 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.3: Long non-coding RNAs as transcriptional regulators | A continual challenge for gene expression profiling is that comparing expression levels of… |
| 34 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.3: Long non-coding RNAs as transcriptional regulators | probable that causality can be established (Nica and Dermitzakis, 2013). Among the enriched eQTL… |
| 35 | 3. Biological co-expression networks: Transcriptional regulation in alcohol use disorder — 3.3: Long non-coding RNAs as transcriptional regulators | Although the role of lncRNAs in alcohol dependence is still unclear, they are known to 1) regulate… |
| 36 | 4. Functional systems associated with alcohol dependence | In addition to discrete mechanisms of transcriptional regulation, analysis of the human… |
| 37 | 4. Functional systems associated with alcohol dependence — 4.1: GABA | Alcohol potentiates GABAA receptor-mediated responses and enhances inhibitory neurotransmission.… |
| 38 | 4. Functional systems associated with alcohol dependence — 4.1: GABA | Some of the top candidate genes implicated in alcohol consumption in humans are transcripts for… |
| 39 | 4. Functional systems associated with alcohol dependence — 4.1: GABA | Alcohol alters the expression of genes involved in neurotransmission, specifically those implicated… |
No entities extracted from this document yet.
No uploaded files.
In this knowledge base
| Title | Year | PMID |
|---|---|---|
| Allele-specific expression and high-throughput reporter assay reveal functional genetic variants associated with alcohol use disorders. | 2021 | 31477794 |
External
| Title | Authors | Journal | Year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cortical reactive microglia activate astrocytes, increasing neurodegeneration in human alcohol use disorder. | Crews FT et al. | — | 2026 | → |
| Integrative Genomics Approach Identifies Glial Transcriptomic Dysregulation and Risk in the Cortex of Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder. | Warden AS et al. | — | 2026 | → |
| Noradrenaline Modulates Central Amygdala GABA Transmission and Alcohol Drinking in Female Rats. | Anjos-Santos A et al. | — | 2026 | → |
| Comparative mRNA profile analysis from NAc of adolescent male mice after binge-like alcohol exposure eliciting deficits in context fear extinction learning. | Lloret Torres ME et al. | — | 2025 | → |
| Identifying compounds to treat opiate use disorder by leveraging multi-omic data integration and multiple drug repurposing databases. | Stratford JK et al. | — | 2025 | → |
| Modeling Brain Gene Expression in Alcohol Use Disorder with Genetic Animal Models. | Hitzemann R et al. | — | 2025 | → |
| Cell-type brain-region specific changes in prefrontal cortex of a mouse model of alcohol dependence. | Salem NA et al. | — | 2024 | → |
| Brain proteomic atlas of alcohol use disorder in adult males. | Teng PN et al. | — | 2023 | → |
| Diagnosis and Management of Marchiafava-Bignami Disease, a Rare Neurological Complication of Long-term Alcohol Abuse. | Singer E et al. | — | 2023 | → |
| The Effects of Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation of Nucleus Accumbens on Neuronal Gene Expression and Brain Tissue in High Alcohol-Preferring Rats. | Deveci E et al. | — | 2023 | → |
| Marchiafava Bignami Disease: A Rare Neurological Complication of Long-Term Alcohol Abuse. | Singh S et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| Modulation of the Drosophila transcriptome by developmental exposure to alcohol. | Morozova TV et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| RNA biomarkers for alcohol use disorder. | Ferguson LB et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| Alcohol induced impairment/abnormalities in brain: Role of MicroRNAs. | Sushma et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Allele-specific expression and high-throughput reporter assay reveal functional genetic variants associated with alcohol use disorders. | Rao X et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Epigenetic landscape of stress surfeit disorders: Key role for DNA methylation dynamics. | Gatta E et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Modulation of the Drosophila Transcriptome by Developmental Exposure to Alcohol | Morozova TV et al. | — | 2021 | — |
| Regional radiomics similarity networks (R2SNs) in the human brain: Reproducibility, small-world properties and a biological basis. | Zhao K et al. | — | 2021 | → |
| Assessing the Role of Long Noncoding RNA in Nucleus Accumbens in Subjects With Alcohol Dependence. | Drake J et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Chronic Voluntary Ethanol Drinking in Cynomolgus Macaques Elicits Gene Expression Changes in Prefrontal Cortical Area 46. | Walter NAR et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Flying Together: <i>Drosophila</i> as a Tool to Understand the Genetics of Human Alcoholism. | Lathen DR et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Microglia Control Escalation of Drinking in Alcohol-Dependent Mice: Genomic and Synaptic Drivers. | Warden AS et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Molecular mechanisms of psychiatric diseases. | Blokhin IO et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Network preservation reveals shared and unique biological processes associated with chronic alcohol abuse in NAc and PFC. | Vornholt E et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| Phenotypic and gene expression features associated with variation in chronic ethanol consumption in heterogeneous stock collaborative cross mice. | Hitzemann R et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| RNA-Seq Analysis of Genetic and Transcriptome Network Effects of Dual-Trait Selection for Ethanol Preference and Withdrawal Using SOT and NOT Genetic Models. | Kozell LB et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| The role of the mTOR pathway in models of drug-induced reward and the behavioural constituents of addiction. | Ucha M et al. | — | 2020 | → |
| A Pathway-Based Genomic Approach to Identify Medications: Application to Alcohol Use Disorder. | Ferguson LB et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Brain Imaging-Guided Analysis Reveals DNA Methylation Profiles Correlated with Insular Surface Area and Alcohol Use Disorder. | Zhao Y et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Proteomics Reveals Profound Metabolic Changes in the Alcohol Use Disorder Brain. | Enculescu C et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Regional Analysis of the Brain Transcriptome in Mice Bred for High and Low Methamphetamine Consumption. | Hitzemann R et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Silencing synaptic MicroRNA-411 reduces voluntary alcohol consumption in mice. | Most D et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Studying alcohol use disorder using Drosophila melanogaster in the era of 'Big Data'. | Engel GL et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Testosterone modulation of ethanol effects on the µ-opioid receptor kinetics in castrated rats. | Khalil R et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| The importance of long non-coding RNAs in neuropsychiatric disorders. | Hosseini E et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| A molecular mechanism for choosing alcohol over an alternative reward. | Augier E et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| GABA<sub>A</sub> receptor polymorphisms in alcohol use disorder in the GWAS era. | Koulentaki M et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Long-term ethanol exposure: Temporal pattern of microRNA expression and associated mRNA gene networks in mouse brain. | Osterndorff-Kahanek EA et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Persistent Neuroadaptations in the Expression of Genes Involved in Cholesterol Homeostasis Induced by Chronic, Voluntary Alcohol Intake in Rats. | Alsebaaly J et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Upregulation of lncRNA-ATB by Transforming Growth Factor β1 (TGF-β1) Promotes Migration and Invasion of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Cells. | Cui M et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Chronic intermittent ethanol exposure selectively alters the expression of Gα subunit isoforms and RGS subtypes in rat prefrontal cortex. | Luessen DJ et al. | — | 2017 | → |
| Emerging Role of One-Carbon Metabolism and DNA Methylation Enrichment on δ-Containing GABAA Receptor Expression in the Cerebellum of Subjects with Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD). | Gatta E et al. | — | 2017 | → |
| The future is now: A 2020 view of alcoholism research. | Harris RA et al. | — | 2017 | → |
| The role of neuroimmune signaling in alcoholism. | Crews FT et al. | — | 2017 | → |