%0 Journal Article
%T Phosphorylation of Neurofilament Light Chain in the VLO Is Correlated with Morphine-Induced Behavioral Sensitization in Rats.
%A Zhang YX
%A Zhu YM
%A Yang XX
%A Gao FF
%A Chen J
%A Yu DY
%A Gao JQ
%A Chen ZN
%A Yang JS
%A Yan CX
%A Huo FQ
%J Int J Mol Sci
%V 24
%N 9
%D 2023 Apr 22
%M 37175416
%F 6.208
%R 10.3390/ijms24097709
%X Neurofilament light chain (NF-L) plays critical roles in synapses that are relevant to neuropsychiatric diseases. Despite postmortem evidence that NF-L is decreased in opiate abusers, its role and underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. We found that the microinjection of the histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor Trichostatin A (TSA) into the ventrolateral orbital cortex (VLO) attenuated chronic morphine-induced behavioral sensitization. The microinjection of TSA blocked the chronic morphine-induced decrease of NF-L. However, our chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-qPCR results indicated that this effect was not due to the acetylation of histone H3-Lysine 9 and 14 binding to the NF-L promotor. In line with the behavioral phenotype, the microinjection of TSA also blocked the chronic morphine-induced increase of p-ERK/p-CREB/p-NF-L. Finally, we compared chronic and acute morphine-induced behavioral sensitization. We found that although both chronic and acute morphine-induced behavioral sensitization were accompanied by an increase of p-CREB/p-NF-L, TSA exhibited opposing effects on behavioral phenotype and molecular changes at different addiction contexts. Thus, our findings revealed a novel role of NF-L in morphine-induced behavioral sensitization, and therefore provided some correlational evidence of the involvement of NF-L in opiate addiction.