Species-specific sensitivity to intracerebroventricular streptozotocin in rats and mice highlights pathways and proteins relevant to Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract

For over three decades, intracerebroventricular streptozotocin (STZ-icv) has been a key non-transgenic rodent model of sporadic Alzheimer's disease. Traditionally used in rats, its use in mice is growing due to practical advantages. While factors like strain, sex, vehicle, age, and dosage are well studied in STZ-induced diabetes models, their impact on STZ-icv-related cognitive deficits remains poorly understood. To address this gap, we examine species-specific sensitivity to STZ-icv in two widely used rodent strains (Wistar Han rats and C57BL/6 mice) motivated by the finding that, despite reliably inducing cognitive deficits in rats for over 30 years in our lab, the same STZ-icv procedure yields inconsistent results in C57BL/6 mice. To explore this phenomenon, we first constructed a series of allometric models to assess how different STZ-icv concentrations affect predicted exposure in rats and mice. Next, we provide behavioral and immunohistochemical evidence that C57BL/6 mice exhibit resistance to STZ doses that should achieve sufficient neuronal exposure. Finally, we perform an exploratory multiomic analysis, examining differentially expressed proteins in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of STZ-icv-treated rats that also show differential expression between Wistar Han rats and C57BL/6 mice, followed by an investigation of these proteins across independent Alzheimer's disease cohorts. Through this analysis, we identify three understudied proteins-Tagln2, Slc25a3, and Pafah1b3-that may contribute to the differential sensitivity of Wistar Han rats and C57BL/6 mice to STZ-icv and may play a role in the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease.