PNAs: scientists discover key proteins, directly attack the new crux of depression

Depression is the most direct interpretation of depression, which is also the most common experience of depression patients However, according to the latest research, depression sometimes means more and more Fibroblast growth factor (FGF), a kind of protein, can promote cell growth, stimulate angiogenesis and repair damage One of the isomers, FGF9, was once thought to be less expressed in the brains of depressed people However, an academic paper published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on September 8 overturned the above conclusion and confirmed that the FGF9 content in the key areas of the brain of depression patients was much higher than that of normal people by 32% The results showed that when the expression of FGF9 was up-regulated, the rats showed symptoms similar to depression, and the content of FGF9 protein in brain increased significantly after repeated stress stress This study further proves that depression is a physical disease If FGF9 or its downstream effector protein can be proved to be the drug target directly targeting the focus, then this study is expected to improve the condition of patients with depression and save thousands of patients with mental disorders Because the traditional medicine thinks that the side effects of drugs that prevent the over expression of body protein are less than those of up-regulated protein The team believes their findings could help create new antidepressants Protein expression difference: an unexpected discovery Researchers from the University of Michigan School of medicine and the Pritzker Institute of mental disorders focused on fibroblast growth factor, which regulates cell growth in the brain and other body parts The team has been studying the FGF2 protein factor in the brain for many years, trying to find out the reason for the low expression of FGF2 protein in the brain of patients with depression and other related mental diseases They have even shown that FGF2 injections can relieve anxiety symptoms They used 36 depressed and 56 normal brain samples collected from Pritzker Association as experimental samples, and analyzed the gene expression differences in the dead brain area, especially the hippocampus (the important area in the brain responsible for memory function, learning function and stress resistance) through three different gene chips and fluorescence quantitative PCR technology They found unexpectedly that FGF9 expression in patients' brains was much higher than that in normal people's Moreover, when the expression of FGF9 was up-regulated, the expression of other fibroblast growth factors decreased This means that the system regulating the growth and development of brain cells in patients with depression has been changed Reveal FGF9 function by rodents The research team decided to further study the function of FGF9 and try to find out the factors that cause the up regulation of FGF9 expression First, they put pressure on the rats for a week and a half to observe the expression of FGF9 in different regions of the hippocampus The results showed that in addition to the up-regulation of FGF9 expression, the experimental mice became more isolated and their weight changed significantly Later, the researchers injected FGF9 (placebo) into the experimental mice to observe their physiological response The specific observation index is the spatial change between the left and right ventricles The results showed that the rats in the experimental group became more anxious and inactive Finally, the team developed a virus that inhibits FGF9 expression through RNA interference The virus was injected into the dentate gyrus of the rat hippocampus The results showed that FGF9 expression decreased by about 30% and the experimental group showed less anxiety The level of FGF9 expression in the control group did not change "We call this method" antisense expression, "said Akil, a neuroscience professor and author of the paper We began to carefully conduct large-scale analysis of the human brain to find new key factors that cause or maintain depression Then, we take rodents such as experimental mice as research objects to verify the function of these key factors, so as to determine whether we can find new therapies for these key factors " Research prospect The team studied the factors that control the up-regulation of FGF9 expression, as well as the expression of FGF9 protein in other brain regions, trying to find out the mechanism that it affects the communication of brain cells They hope to find drugs to regulate the expression of FGF9, but it should be noted that FGF9 protein plays an important role in the lung and blood vessels.