AhR signaling activation disrupts migration and dendritic growth of olfactory interneurons in the developing mouse

Perinatal exposure to a low level of dioxin, a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, has been shown to induce abnormalities in learning and memory, emotion, and sociality in laboratory animals later in adulthood. However, how aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) signaling activation disrupts the higher brain function remains unclear. Therefore, we studied the possible effects of excessive activation of AhR signaling on neurodevelopmental processes, such as cellular migration and neurite growth, in mice. To this end, we transfected a constitutively active-AhR plasmid into stem cells in the lateral ventricle by in vivo electroporation on postnatal day 1. Transfection was found to induce tangential migration delay and morphological abnormalities in neuronal precursors in the rostral migratory stream at 6 days post-electroporation (dpe) as well as disrupt radial migration in the olfactory bulb and apical and basal dendritic growth of the olfactory interneurons in the granule cell layer at 13 and 20 dpe. These results suggest that the retarded development of interneurons by the excessive AhR signaling may at least in part explain the dioxin-induced abnormal behavioral alterations previously reported in laboratory animals.