May 23, 2013

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Geneticists at theMedical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University have identified a key regulatory gene that appears to play a role in the classic symptoms of schizophrenia.

According to a report in thejournalNeuron on the discovery targets expression of a gene known as Neuregulin-1 and could lead to promising treatments for patients with the psychological disorder.

In the study, the geneticists engineered mice to have elevated levels of Neuregulin-1 activity, replicating levels found in some patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. They observed the reduced activity of the brain messengers glutamate and GABA, a major inhibitory neurotransmitter. These mice were also seen to interact less with other animals and frequently failed certain thinking tasks, behaviors also seen in humans with schizophrenia.

The deficits reversed when we normalized Neuregulin-1 expression in animals that had been symptomatic, suggesting that damage which occurred during development is recoverable in adulthood, explained Dr. Lin Mei, a professor at the university.

While mouse models cant really do full justice to a complex brain disorder that impairs our most uniquely human characteristics, this study demonstrates the potential of dissecting the workings of intermediate components of disorders in animals to discover underlying mechanisms and new treatment targets, said Dr. Thomas R. Insel, a director at the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study.

Hopeful news about how an illness process that originates early in development might be reversible in adulthood illustrates the promise of such translational research.

The geneticists were able to measure Neuregulin-1 activity fairly easily, as blood level indicators correlate well with those in the brain. To affect the mice, the researchers put a copy of the Neureglin-1 gene into mouse DNA. In front of that gene the team put a binding protein for doxycycline, an analogue for the antibiotic tetracycline, which stains the teeth of fetuses and babies. This causes the administration of tetracycline to result in a drop in Neureglin-1 activity.

If you dont feed the mice tetracycline, the Neuregulin-1 levels are always high, said Mei, adding that normal levels of the gene are not affected by the antibiotic.

Read more here:
Controlling Schizophrenia Gene Could Help Tame The Disease

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