Gene expression profiling of the rewarding effect caused by methamphetamine in the mesolimbic dopamine system.
Methamphetamine, a commonly used addictive drug, is a powerful addictive stimulant that dramatically affects the CNS. Repeated METH administration leads to a rewarding effect in a state of addiction that includes sensitization, dependence, and other phenomena. It is well known that susceptibility to the development of addiction is influenced by sources of reinforcement, variable neuroadaptive mechanisms, and neurochemical changes that together lead to altered homeostasis of the brain reward system. These behavioral abnormalities reflect neuroadaptive changes in signal transduction function and cellular gene expression produced by repeated drug exposure. To provide a better understanding of addiction and the mechanism of the rewarding effect, it is important to identify related genes. In the present study, we performed gene expression profiling using microarray analysis in a reward effect animal model. We also investigated gene expression in four important regions of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, striatum, hippocampus, and cingulated cortex, and analyzed the data by two clustering methods. Genes related to signaling pathways including G-protein-coupled receptor-related pathways predominated among the identified genes. The genes identified in our study may contribute to the development of a gene modeling network for methamphetamine addiction.
Yang
Moon Hee
MH
Department of Biological Science, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul 140-742, Korea.
Jung
Min-Suk
MS
Lee
Min Joo
MJ
Yoo
Kyung Hyun
KH
Yook
Yeon Joo
YJ
Park
Eun Young
EY
Choi
Seo Hee
SH
Suh
Young Ju
YJ
Kim
Kee-Won
KW
Park
Jong Hoon
JH
D019969:Amphetamine-Related Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000502:physiology; D004298:Dopamine / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D008032:Limbic System / Q000502:physiology*; D008694:Methamphetamine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000502:physiology; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012201:Reward; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology
D008694:Methamphetamine; D004298:Dopamine