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. 2019 Oct 30;12:260. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2019.00260

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Loss of microRNA-137 (miR-137) in the nervous system leads to the anxiety-like behavior in mice. (A) Generation of the miR-137 conditional knockout mice. By crossing the miR-137 floxed mice with Emx1-Cre mice, we specifically deleted miR-137 in the forebrain and generated miR-137 cKO mice. (B) Assessment of mature miR-137 levels by quantitative RT-PCR (qPCR) indicated almost undetectable or very low levels in both hippocampus (Quinn et al., 2018) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) of miR-137 cKO mice (n = 4 mice per group; **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; student’s t-test). (C) Number of entries and (D) percentage of time spent in the light compartment in the light-dark preference test were significantly decreased in miR-137 cKO mice (n = 12–14 mice per group; *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001; student’s t-test). (E) In the open field test, there was no difference in the total distance moved during the 30-min period, suggesting similar locomotor activities between mir-137 cKO and WT mice. However, mir-137 cKO mice spent less time in center (F), and entered the center zone significantly fewer times than WT mice (G), indicating elevated anxious behavior (n = 12–14 mice per group; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01; student’s t-test).