Person:
Marco López, Eva María

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First Name
Eva María
Last Name
Marco López
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/74379
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Ciencias Biológicas
Department
Genética, Fisiología y Microbiología
Area
Fisiología
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UCM identifierORCIDScopus Author IDWeb of Science ResearcherIDDialnet IDGoogle Scholar ID

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2016 - 20172
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    Effects of adolescent intermittent alcohol exposure on the expression of endocannabinoid signaling-related proteins in the spleen of young adult rats
    (PLoS ONE, 2016) Pavón, Francisco Javier; Marco López, Eva María; Vázquez, Mariam; Sánchez, Laura; Rivera, Patricia; Gavito, Ana; Mela Rivas, Virginia; Alén, Francisco; Decara, Juan; Suárez, Juan; Giné Domínguez, Elena; López Moreno, José Antonio; Chowen, Julie A.; Rodríguez de Fonseca, Fernando; Serrano, Antonia; Viveros Hernando, María Paz
    Intermittent alcohol exposure is a common pattern of alcohol consumption among adolescents and alcohol is known to modulate the expression of the endocannabinoid system (ECS), which is involved in metabolism and inflammation. However, it is unknown whether this pattern may have short-term consequences on the ECS in the spleen. To address this question, we examined the plasma concentrations of metabolic and inflammatory signals and the splenic ECS in early adult rats exposed to alcohol during adolescence. A 4-day drinking in the dark (DID) procedure for 4 weeks was used as a model of intermittent forced-alcohol administration (20%, v/v) in female and male Wistar rats, which were sacrificed 2 weeks after the last DID session. First, there was no liver damage or alterations in plasma metabolic parameters. However, certain plasma inflammatory signals were altered according to sex and alcohol exposition. Whereas fractalkine [chemokine (C-X3-C motif) ligand 1] was only affected by sex with lower concentration in male rats, there was an interaction between sex and alcohol exposure in the TNF-α and interleukin-6 concentrations and only female rats displayed changes. Regarding the mRNA and protein expression of the ECS, the receptors and endocannabinoid-synthesizing enzymes were found to be altered with area-specific expression patterns in the spleen. Overall, whereas the expression of the cannabinoid receptor CB1 and the nuclear peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor PPARα were lower in alcohol-exposed rats compared to control rats, the CB2 expression was higher. Additionally, the N-acyl-phosphatidylethanolamine-specific phospholipase D expression was high in female alcohol-exposed rats and low in male alcohol-exposed rats. In conclusion, intermittent alcohol consumption during adolescence may be sufficient to induce short-term changes in the expression of splenic endocannabinoid signaling-related proteins and plasma pro-inflammatory cytokines in young adult rats with a strong sexual dimorphism. The potential impact of these alterations in early adulthood remains to be elucidated.
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    Long-term effects of intermittent adolescent alcohol exposure in male and female rats
    (Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 2017) Marco López, Eva María; Peñasco, Sara; Hernández, María Donina; Gil, Anabel; Borcel, Erika; Moya, Marta; Giné Domínguez, Elena; López Moreno, José Antonio; Guerri, Consuelo; López Gallardo, Meritxell; Rodríguez de Fonseca, Fernando
    Alcohol is a serious public health concern that has a differential impact on individuals depending upon age and sex. Patterns of alcohol consumption have recently changed: heavy episodic drinking—known as binge-drinking—has become most popular among the youth. Herein, we aimed to investigate the consequences of intermittent adolescent alcohol consumption in male and female animals. Thus, Wistar rats were given free access to ethanol (20% in drinking water) or tap water for 2-h sessions during 3 days, and for an additional 4-h session on the 4th day; every week during adolescence, from postnatal day (pnd) 28–52. During this period, animals consumed a moderate amount of alcohol despite blood ethanol concentration (BEC) did not achieve binge-drinking levels. No withdrawal signs were observed: no changes were observed regarding anxiety-like responses in the elevated plus-maze or plasma corticosterone levels (pnd 53–54). In the novel object recognition (NOR) test (pnd 63), a significant deficit in recognition memory was observed in both male and female rats. Western Blot analyses resulted in an increase in the expression of synaptophysin in the frontal cortex (FC) of male and female animals, together with a decrease in the expression of the CB2R in the same brain region. In addition, adolescent alcohol induced, exclusively among females, a decrease in several markers of dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission, in which epigenetic mechanisms, i.e., histone acetylation, might be involved. Taken together, further research is still needed to specifically correlate sex-specific brain and behavioral consequences of adolescent alcohol exposure.