title: Lack of effect of acute, subchronic, or chronic stress on glycogen synthase kinase-3beta protein levels in rat frontal cortex.
abstract: Glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3beta is a conserved serine/threonine protein kinase highly abundant in brain tissue. A dominant mechanism by which cells react to stress involves GSK-3beta. We studied the effect of stress on GSK-3beta levels ex vivo. We have previously found reduced GSK-3beta protein levels and GSK-3 activity in postmortem prefrontal cortex of schizophrenic patients. Since schizophrenic patients experience stress more severely than healthy people, we questioned whether their GSK-3beta reduction is stress-related using a rat model. Rats were exposed to acute, subchronic, or chronic stress using brief cold restraint. No effect was found on frontal cortex GSK-3beta protein levels. These results suggest that reduction in GSK-3beta levels in schizophrenic patients is not affected by cold restraint stress and supports the possibility that the changes observed in postmortem brains may be related to the disease.
authors.affiliation: Stanley Research Center, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Nitsan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kozlovsky
authors.forename: Robert H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Belmaker
authors.forename: Galila
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Agam
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D038362:Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 / Q000032:analysis*; D000071679:Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 beta; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000473:pathology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D000071679:Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 beta; C000605508:Gsk3b protein, rat; D038362:Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3