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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2012 Nov 11;15(12):1621–1623. doi: 10.1038/nn.3263

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Prolonged social isolation of adult mice decreases myelin gene products and heterochromatin formation. (a,b) Quantitative real-time-PCR (qRT-PCR) of myelin gene transcripts in nucleus accumbens, corpus callosum and PFC. Bar graphs indicate average values in six isolated mice after Gapdh normalization relative to average control levels (dashed line) (*false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05, **FDR < 0.01). (c) Confocal images of Mbp+ (red) myelinated fibers in PFC and cerebellum. DAPI (blue) was used as nuclear counterstain. Scale bar, 10 μm. (d) Confocal images of oligodendrocytes in the PFC of isolated and group-housed Cnp-EGFP mice. (e) Electron micrographs of PFC showing myelinated axon (top) and relative appearance of oligodendrocyte nuclei (bottom) in isolated and control mice. Scale bar, 1 μm. (f) Scatter plot of the percentage nuclear heterochromatin in PFC oligodendrocytes from control (n = 36 nuclei) and isolated (n = 40 nuclei) mice (***P < 0.001). (g,h) Confocal images of CC1+ oligodendrocytes (green) colabeled with antibodies for acetylated histone marks (H3ac, red, g) or repressive methylation marks (H3K9me3, red, h). Scale bars, 10 μm. (i,j) qRT-PCR analysis of transcripts of enzymes regulating histone acetylation (i) and repressive DNA and histone methylation (j). Data are presented as in a and b. Error bars, s.e.m.