[ER stress and psychiatric disorders].
Various stresses cause the accumulation of unfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). For this serious "ER stress", cells have unfolded protein responses (UPR) consisting of the translation block, the induction of chaperones, and ER-associated degradation (ERAD). If cells do not overcome the ER stress by UPR, ER-mediated apoptosis occurs. Recent reports showed that several diseases, such as ischemic diseases, viral infections, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases, are caused by ER stress. In psychiatric disorders, it was recently reported that ER stress is involved in bipolar disorders. There were reports that drugs for bipolar disorders induce chaperones, that polymorphism of the molecule of ER stress is significantly related to the bipolar disorder, and that the causal gene of the autosomal recessive disease having mood disorder as a phenotype is induced by ER stress. Another report showed that ER stress is involved in sleep disturbances.
Kudo
Takashi
T
Laboratory Psychiatry, Department of Integrated Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, D3, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Japan. kudo@psy.med.osaka-u.ac.jp