Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 19, 2025
Low-Cost Gait Analysis for Behavioral Phenotyping of Mouse Models of Neuromuscular Disease
Published on: July 18, 2019
Gait Abnormalities and Aberrant D2 Receptor Expression and Signaling in Mice Carrying the Human Pathogenic Mutation
Dayana Rodriguez-Contreras1, Sheng Gong1, Joseph J Lebowitz1
1Research Service, VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, Oregon (D.R.-C., T.J.P., K.A.N.); Department of Behavioral Neuroscience (D.R.-C., T.J.P., K.A.N.), Transgenic Mouse Models Shared Resource (L.M.F.), and Vollum Institute (J.J.L., J.T.W.), Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon; Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado (S.G., C.P.F.); Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (S.G., C.P.F.); and New York University Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (N.A., T.M.D.).
Abstract:
A dopamine D2 receptor mutation was recently identified in a family with a novel hyperkinetic movement disorder. That allelic variant D2-I212F is a constitutively active and G protein-biased receptor. We now describe mice engineered using CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing technology to carry the D2-I212F variant. Drd2 mice exhibited gait abnormalities resembling those in other mouse models of chorea and/or dystonia and had striatal D2 receptor expression that was decreased approximately 30% per Drd2 allele. Electrically evoked inhibitory postsynaptic conductances in midbrain dopamine neurons and striatum from Drd2 mice, caused by G protein activation of potassium channels, exhibited slow kinetics (e.g., approximately four- to sixfold slower decay) compared with Drd2 +/+ mice. Current decay initiated by photolytic release of the D2 antagonist sulpiride from CyHQ-sulpiride was also ∼fourfold slower in midbrain slices from Drd2 mice than Drd2 +/+ mice. Furthermore, in contrast to Drd2 +/+ mice, in which dopamine is several-fold more potent at neurons in the nucleus accumbens than in the dorsal striatum, reflecting activation of Gα o versus Gα i, dopamine had similar potencies in those two brain regions of Drd2 mice. Repeated cocaine treatment, which decreases dopamine potency in the nucleus accumbens of Drd2 +/+ mice, had no effect on dopamine potency in Drd2 I212F mice. The results demonstrate the pathogenicity of the D2-I212F mutation and the utility of this mouse model for investigating the role of pathogenic DRD2 variants in early-onset hyperkinetic movement disorders. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The first dopamine receptor mutation to cause a movement disorder, D2-I212F, was recently identified. The mutation makes receptor activation of G protein-mediated signaling more efficient. To confirm the pathogenesis of D2-I212F, this study reports that mice carrying this mutation have gait abnormalities consistent with the clinical phenotype. The mutation also profoundly alters D2 receptor expression and function in vivo. This mouse model will be useful for further characterization of the mutant receptor and for evaluation of potential therapeutic drugs.
