First Author | Balogh SA | Year | 2001 |
Journal | Brain Res | Volume | 892 |
Issue | 2 | Pages | 336-43 |
PubMed ID | 11172781 | Mgi Jnum | J:67564 |
Mgi Id | MGI:1930856 | Doi | 10.1016/s0006-8993(00)03268-6 |
Citation | Balogh SA, et al. (2001) Facilitated stimulus-response associative learning and long-term memory in mice lacking the NTAN1 amidase of the N-end rule pathway. Brain Res 892(2):336-43 |
abstractText | The N-end rule relates the in vivo half-life of a protein to the identity of its N-terminal residue. Inactivation of the NTAN1 gene encoding the asparagine-specific N-terminal amidase in mice results in impaired spatial memory [26]. The studies described here were designed to further characterize the effects upon learning and memory of inactivating the NTAN1 gene. NTAN1-deficient mice were found to be better than wild-type mice on black-white and horizontal-vertical discrimination learning. They were also better at 8-week Morris maze retention testing when a reversal trial was not included in the testing procedures. In all three tasks NTAN1-deficient mice appeared to use a strong win-stay strategy. It is concluded that inactivating the asparagine-specific branch of the N-end rule pathway in mice results in impaired spatial learning with concomitant compensatory restructuring of the nervous system in favor of non-spatial (stimulus-response) learning. |