Age, sex, and apolipoprotein E isoform alter contextual fear learning, neuronal activation, and baseline DNA damage in the hippocampus

Age, female sex, and apolipoprotein E4 (E4) are risk factors to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There are three major human apoE isoforms: E2, E3, and E4. Compared to E3, E4 increases while E2 decreases AD risk. However, E2 is associated with increased risk and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In cognitively healthy adults, E4 carriers have greater brain activation during learning and memory tasks in the absence of behavioral differences. Human apoE targeted replacement (TR) mice display differences in fear extinction that parallel human data: E2 mice show impaired extinction, mirroring heightened PTSD symptoms in E2 combat veterans. Recently, an adaptive role of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) in immediate early gene expression (IEG) has been described. Age and disease synergistically increase DNA damage and decrease DNA repair. As the mechanisms underlying the relative risks of apoE, sex, and their interactions in aging are unclear, we used young (3 months) and middle-aged (12 months) male and female TR mice to investigate the influence of these factors on DSBs and IEGs at baseline and following contextual fear conditioning. We assessed brain-wide changes in neural activation following fear conditioning using whole-brain cFos imaging in young female TR mice. E4 mice froze more during fear conditioning and had lower cFos immunoreactivity across regions important for somatosensation and contextual encoding compared to E2 mice. E4 mice also showed altered co-activation compared to E3 mice, corresponding to human MRI and cognitive data, and indicating that there are differences in brain activity and connectivity at young ages independent of fear learning. There were increased DSB markers in middle-aged animals and alterations to cFos levels dependent on sex and isoform, as well. The increase in hippocampal DSB markers in middle-aged animals and female E4 mice may play a role in the risk for developing AD.