Cocaine regulation of Nr4a1 chromatin bivalency and mRNA in male and female mice

Cocaine epigenetically regulates gene expression via changes in histone post-translational modifications (HPTMs). We previously found that the immediate early gene Nr4a1 is epigenetically activated by cocaine in mouse brain reward regions. However, few studies have examined multiple HPTMs at a single gene. Bivalent gene promoters are simultaneously enriched in both activating (H3K4me3 (K4)) and repressive (H3K27me3 (K27)) HPTMs. As such, bivalent genes are lowly expressed but poised for activity-dependent gene regulation. In this study, we identified K4&K27 bivalency at Nr4a1 following investigator-administered cocaine in male and female mice. We applied sequential chromatin immunoprecipitation and qPCR to define Nr4a1 bivalency and expression in striatum (STR), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and hippocampus (HPC). We used Pearson’s correlation to quantify relationships within each brain region across treatment conditions for each sex. In female STR, cocaine increased Nr4a1 mRNA while maintaining Nr4a1 K4&K27 bivalency. In male STR, cocaine enriched repressive H3K27me3 and K4&K27 bivalency at Nr4a1 and maintained Nr4a1 mRNA. Furthermore, cocaine epigenetically regulated a putative NR4A1 target, Cartpt, in male PFC. This study defined the epigenetic regulation of Nr4a1 in reward brain regions in male and female mice following cocaine, and, thus, shed light on the biological relevance of sex to cocaine use disorder.