TY - JOUR
T1 - Extensive characterization of a Williams syndrome murine model shows Gtf2ird1-mediated rescue of select sensorimotor tasks, but no effect on enhanced social behavior
AU - Nygaard, Kayla R.
AU - Maloney, Susan E.
AU - Swift, Raylynn G.
AU - McCullough, Katherine B.
AU - Wagner, Rachael E.
AU - Fass, Stuart B.
AU - Garbett, Krassimira
AU - Mirnics, Karoly
AU - Veenstra-VanderWeele, Jeremy
AU - Dougherty, Joseph D.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Genes, Brain and Behavior published by International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2023/8
Y1 - 2023/8
N2 - Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder exhibiting cognitive and behavioral abnormalities, including increased social motivation, risk of anxiety and specific phobias along with perturbed motor function. Williams syndrome is caused by a microdeletion of 26–28 genes on chromosome 7, including GTF2IRD1, which encodes a transcription factor suggested to play a role in the behavioral profile of Williams syndrome. Duplications of the full region also lead to frequent autism diagnosis, social phobias and language delay. Thus, genes in the region appear to regulate social motivation in a dose-sensitive manner. A “complete deletion” mouse, heterozygously eliminating the syntenic Williams syndrome region, has been deeply characterized for cardiac phenotypes, but direct measures of social motivation have not been assessed. Furthermore, the role of Gtf2ird1 in these behaviors has not been addressed in a relevant genetic context. Here, we have generated a mouse overexpressing Gtf2ird1, which can be used both to model duplication of this gene alone and to rescue Gtf2ird1 expression in the complete deletion mice. Using a comprehensive behavioral pipeline and direct measures of social motivation, we provide evidence that the Williams syndrome critical region regulates social motivation along with motor and anxiety phenotypes, but that Gtf2ird1 complementation is not sufficient to rescue most of these traits, and duplication does not decrease social motivation. However, Gtf2ird1 complementation does rescue light-aversive behavior and performance on select sensorimotor tasks, perhaps indicating a role for this gene in sensory processing or integration.
AB - Williams syndrome is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder exhibiting cognitive and behavioral abnormalities, including increased social motivation, risk of anxiety and specific phobias along with perturbed motor function. Williams syndrome is caused by a microdeletion of 26–28 genes on chromosome 7, including GTF2IRD1, which encodes a transcription factor suggested to play a role in the behavioral profile of Williams syndrome. Duplications of the full region also lead to frequent autism diagnosis, social phobias and language delay. Thus, genes in the region appear to regulate social motivation in a dose-sensitive manner. A “complete deletion” mouse, heterozygously eliminating the syntenic Williams syndrome region, has been deeply characterized for cardiac phenotypes, but direct measures of social motivation have not been assessed. Furthermore, the role of Gtf2ird1 in these behaviors has not been addressed in a relevant genetic context. Here, we have generated a mouse overexpressing Gtf2ird1, which can be used both to model duplication of this gene alone and to rescue Gtf2ird1 expression in the complete deletion mice. Using a comprehensive behavioral pipeline and direct measures of social motivation, we provide evidence that the Williams syndrome critical region regulates social motivation along with motor and anxiety phenotypes, but that Gtf2ird1 complementation is not sufficient to rescue most of these traits, and duplication does not decrease social motivation. However, Gtf2ird1 complementation does rescue light-aversive behavior and performance on select sensorimotor tasks, perhaps indicating a role for this gene in sensory processing or integration.
KW - Gtf2ird1
KW - Williams syndrome
KW - anxiety
KW - motor function
KW - mouse model
KW - sociability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163597362&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/gbb.12853
DO - 10.1111/gbb.12853
M3 - Article
C2 - 37370259
AN - SCOPUS:85163597362
SN - 1601-1848
VL - 22
JO - Genes, Brain and Behavior
JF - Genes, Brain and Behavior
IS - 4
M1 - e12853
ER -