FOSB proteins in the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices of human alcoholics.
The transcription factor DeltaFosB is accumulated in the addiction circuitry, including the orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortices of rodents chronically exposed to ethanol or other drugs of abuse, and has been suggested to play a direct role in addiction maintenance. To address this hypothesis in the context of substance dependence in humans, we compared the immunoreactivities of FOSB proteins in the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (OFC and DLPFC respectively) between controls and alcoholics using semiquantitative immunoblotting. In both structures, we detected three forms of FOSB, one of which was DeltaFOSB, but in neither case did their immunoreactivities differ between the groups. Our results indicate that the DeltaFOSB immunoreactivity in the human brain is very low, and that it is not accumulated in the OFC and DLPFC of human alcoholics, suggesting that it may not be directly involved in addiction maintenance, at least not in ethanol dependence.
Watanabe
Hiroyuki
H
Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden.
Henriksson
Richard
R
Ohnishi
Yoshinori N
YN
Ohnishi
Yoko H
YH
Harper
Clive
C
Sheedy
Donna
D
Garrick
Therese
T
Nyberg
Fred
F
Nestler
Eric J
EJ
Bakalkin
Georgy
G
Yakovleva
Tatjana
T
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000473:pathology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D008970:Molecular Weight; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000473:pathology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D016760:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos / Q000032:analysis*; D012016:Reference Values
C064269:FOSB protein, human; D016760:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos