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.
Alttoa
Aet
A
Department of Psychology, Estonian Centre of Behavioural and Health Sciences, University of Tartu, Estonia.
Kõiv
Kadri
K
Hinsley
Timothy A
TA
Brass
Andrew
A
Harro
Jaanus
J
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