Environmental Deprivation Effects on Myelin Ultrastructure in Huntington Disease and Wildtype Mice

• Published in: Molecular neurobiology 2024-07, Vol.61 (7), p.4278-4288
• Main Authors: Radulescu, Carola I., Ferrari Bardile, Costanza, Garcia-Miralles, Marta, Sidik, Harwin, Yusof, Nur Amirah Binte Mohammad, Pouladi, Mahmoud A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal cognition; Animal models; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain research; Cell Biology; Corpus callosum; Electrons; Housing conditions; Huntington's disease; Huntingtons disease; Morphology; Myelination; Neurobiology; Neurology; Neuropathology; Neurosciences; Oligodendrocytes; Pathology; Social interactions; Social isolation; Transmission electron microscopy; Ultrastructure
• ISSN: 0893-7648; 1559-1182; 1559-1182
• DOI: 10.1007/s12035-023-03799-6

Environmental deprivation can have deleterious effects on adaptive myelination and oligodendroglia function. Early stage Huntington disease (HD) is characterised by white-matter myelin abnormalities in both humans and animal models. However, whether deprived environments exacerbate myelin-related pathological features of HD is not clearly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of deprivation and social isolation on ultrastructural features of myelin in the corpus callosum of the YAC128 mouse model of HD and wildtype (WT) mice using transmission electron microscopy. HD pathology on its own leads to increased representation of altered myelin features, such as thinner sheaths and compromised morphology. Interestingly, deprivation mirrors these effects in WT mice but does not greatly exacerbate the already aberrant myelin in HD mice, indicating a disease-related floor effect in the latter animals. These novel findings indicate that environmental deprivation causes abnormalities in myelin ultrastructure in the otherwise healthy corpus callosum of wild-type mice but has distinct effects on HD mice, where compromised myelin integrity is manifest from early stages of the disease.