Project description:Bipolar disorder is a devastating illness that is marked by recurrent episodes of mania and depression. There is growing evidence that the disease is correlated with disruptions in synaptic plasticity cascades involved in cognition and mood regulation. Alleviating the symptoms of bipolar disorder involves chronic treatment with mood stabilizers like lithium or valproate. These two structurally dissimilar drugs are known to alter prominent signaling cascades in the hippocampus, but their effects on the post-synaptic density complex remain undefined. In this work, we utilized mass spectrometry for quantitative profiling of the rat hippocampal post-synaptic proteome to investigate the effects of chronic mood stabilizer treatment. Our data show that in response to chronic treatment of mood stabilizers there were not gross qualitative changes but rather subtle quantitative perturbations in post-synaptic density proteome linked to several key signaling pathways. Our data specifically support the changes in actin dynamics on valproate treatment. Using label-free quantification methods, we report that lithium and valproate significantly altered the abundance of 21 and 43 proteins, respectively. Seven proteins were affected similarly by both lithium and valproate: Ank3, glutamate receptor 3, dynein heavy chain 1, and four isoforms of the 14-3-3 family. Immunoblotting the same samples confirmed the changes in Ank3 and glutamate receptor 3 abundance. Our findings support the hypotheses that BPD is a synaptic disorder and that mood stabilizers modulate the protein signaling complex in the hippocampal post-synaptic density.
Project description:Shank3 is a postsynaptic density (PSD) scaffold protein of the Shank family. Here we use pre-embedding immunogold electron microscopy to investigate factors influencing the distribution of Shank3 at the PSD. In dissociated rat hippocampal cultures under basal conditions, label for Shank3 was concentrated in a broad layer of the PSD, ~20-80 nm from the postsynaptic membrane. Upon depolarization with high K+ (90 mM, 2 min), or application of NMDA (50 μM, 2 min), both the labeling intensity at the PSD and the median distance of label from the postsynaptic membrane increased significantly, indicating that Shank3 molecules are preferentially recruited to the distal layer of the PSD. Incubation in medium supplemented with zinc (50 μM ZnCl2, 1 hr) also significantly increased labeling intensity for Shank3 at the PSD, but this addition of Shank3 was not preferential to the distal layer. When cells were incubated with zinc and then treated with NMDA, labeling intensity of Shank3 became higher than with either treatment alone and manifested a preference for the distal layer of the PSD. Without zinc supplementation, NMDA-induced accumulation of Shank3 at the PSD was transient, reversing within 30 min after return to control medium. However, when zinc was included in culture media throughout the experiment, the NMDA-induced accumulation of Shank3 was largely retained, including Shank3 molecules recruited to the distal layer of the PSD. These results demonstrate that activity induces accumulation of Shank3 at the PSD and that zinc stabilizes PSD-associated Shank3, possibly through strengthening of Shank-Shank association.
Project description:We isolated the postsynaptic density from human neocortex (hPSD) and identified 1,461 proteins. hPSD mutations cause 133 neurological and psychiatric diseases and were enriched in cognitive, affective and motor phenotypes underpinned by sets of genes. Strong protein sequence conservation in mammalian lineages, particularly in hub proteins, indicates conserved function and organization in primate and rodent models. The hPSD is an important structure for nervous system disease and behavior.