Differential gene expression in a rat model of depression based on persistent differences in exploratory activity.
Affective disorders are often accompanied by changes in motivation and anxiety. We investigated the genome-wide gene expression patterns in an animal model of depression that separates Wistar rats belonging into clusters of persistently high anxiety/low motivation to explore and low anxiety/high motivation to explore (low explorers and high explorers, LE and HE, respectively), in three brain regions previously implicated in mood disorders (raphe, hippocampus and the frontal cortex). Several serotonin-, GABA-, and glutamatergic genes were differentially expressed in LE- and HE-rats. The analysis of Gene Ontology biological process terms associated with the differentially regulated genes identified a significant overrepresentation of genes involved in the neuron development, morphogenesis, and differentiation; the most enriched pathways from the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes were the Wnt signalling, MAPK signalling, long-term potentiation, and long-term depression pathways. These findings corroborate some expression data from other models of depression, and suggest additional targets.
Department of Psychology, Estonian Centre of Behavioural and Health Sciences, University of Tartu, Estonia.
Aet
A
Alttoa
Kadri
K
Kõiv
Timothy A
TA
Hinsley
Andrew
A
Brass
Jaanus
J
Harro
D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D015870:Gene Expression / Q000235:genetics*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D008297:Male; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar