Long-term plastic changes in the brain, including those supporting memory formation, are assumed to depend on permanent functional alterations in neuronal cells that require reprogramming of gene expression. Inducible transcription factors encoded by immediate early genes such as c-fos, c-jun, jun-B and zif/268 (also known as krox-24, egr-1, TIS 8, NGFI-A or zenk) are supposed to act as messengers in coupling short-term neuronal activity with changes at the level of gene transcription. This review will summarize studies on the expression of transcription factor-encoding immediate early genes in the vertebrate brain during behavioral training. Special emphasis will be given to correlative or interventive experimental evidence indicative of a physiological significance of inducible transcription factors for processes underlying learning and memory formation.
Several studies have shown a role for interleukin-1 gene cluster polymorphisms in the risk assessment for periodontal diseases. In the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP), 3148 subjects were randomly selected from the population and assessed for a broad range of diseases and environmental/behavioral risk factors. From the complete study group in the age 40 to 60 years, N = 1085 subjects were genotyped for the interleukin-1 genotype composite polymorphism in relation to periodontal parameters. The study objective was to elucidate the gene-environment interaction between the risk factors smoking and IL-1 polymorphism. An increased risk of periodontal disease was found for IL-1 genotype-positive smokers: odds ratio adjusted for age, sex, education, and plaque OR = 2.50 (95% C.I. 1.21 to 5.13; p = 0.013). This was not the case with subjects who never smoked: OR = 1.09 (0.73-1.62; p = 0.676). These results support the hypothesis of gene-environmental interaction in periodontitis.
IntroductionRecently, the induction of transcription factor-encoding immediate-early genes such as c-fos was observed in distinct brain regions of rats trained to acquire a footshock-motivated brightness discrimination in a Y-maze. The functional relevance of inducible transcription factors for learning and memory formation is, however, not clear. To address this question in the present study, we have used a synthetic antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotide to suppress in vivo the expression of c-fos in rat brain.
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