Fig. 2.
NLGN-2 in the mouse nucleus accumbens changes in chronic stress. (A) The chronic social defeat stress paradigm models depression-like symptoms in mice and results in resilient or susceptible subpopulations. (B) Representative images of NLGN-2 immunohistochemistry in the NAc after social defeat stress in control (B1), susceptible (B2), and resilient (B3) mice. (Scale bar, 20 µm.) (C) NLGN-2 puncta are reduced in susceptible mice (one-way ANOVA: F2,19 = 4.922; *P < 0.05; n = 7, 6, 9), and (D) lower NLGN-2 puncta correlates with decreased social interaction ratio (r2 = 0.4497; ***P = 0.0006). (E) Transcriptional profiling of NLGN-2 in D1-MSNs vs. D2-MSNs after social defeat stress showed a reduction in NLGN-2 mRNA selectively in D1-MSNs of stress-susceptible mice (one-way ANOVA: F2,17 = 3.758; *P < 0.05; n = 7, 7, 4) and (F) the NLGN2 levels in D1-MSNs correlated with reduced interaction time with a novel animal (r2 = 0.238; *P = 0.040). (G) NLGN-2 transcription did not significantly change in D2-MSNs after stress (one-way ANOVA, P > 0.05; n = 6, 8, 4) and (H) did not correlate with changes in social interaction time (r2 = 0.00002; P = 0.98). All data are represented as mean ± SEM.