A common mechanism of action for three mood-stabilizing drugs

Chemotaxis and cell differentiation in Dictyostelium

Dictyostelium genome sequencing predicts an unexpectedly large number of genes. Many are absent from yeast but present in animals and presumably support cellular abilities not found in yeast. Prominent amongst these abilities is chemotaxis, where great strides are being made in understanding how cells orient in a gradient and mobilise their cytoskeleton for movement. In multicellular development, a regulatory scheme for proportioning prespore and prestalk-O cells has emerged.

Mood stabilizer psychopharmacology

Mood stabilizers represent a class of drugs that are efficacious in the treatment of bipolar disorder. The most established medications in this class are lithium, valproic acid, and carbamazepine. In addition to their therapeutic effects for treatment of acute manic episodes, these medications often are useful as prophylaxis against future episodes and as adjunctive antidepressant medications. While important extracellular effects have not been excluded, most available evidence suggests that the therapeutically relevant targets of this class of medications are in the interior of cells. Herein we give a prospective of a rapidly evolving field, discussing common effects of mood stabilizers as well as effects that are unique to individual medications. Mood stabilizers have been shown to modulate the activity of enzymes, ion channels, arachidonic acid turnover, G protein coupled receptors and intracellular pathways involved in synaptic plasticity and neuroprotection. Understanding the therapeutic targets of mood stabilizers will undoubtedly lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder and to the development of improved therapeutics for the treatment of this disease. Furthermore, the involvement of mood stabilizers in pathways operative in neuroprotection suggests that they may have utility in the treatment of classical neurodegenerative disorders.

Electrostatic effects and binding determinants in the catalysis of prolyl oligopeptidase. Site specific mutagenesis at the oxyanion binding site

Prolyl oligopeptidase, a member of a new family of serine peptidases, plays an important role in memory disorders. Earlier x-ray crystallographic investigations indicated that stabilization of the tetrahedral transition state of the reaction involved hydrogen bond formation between the oxyanion of the tetrahedral intermediate and the OH group of Tyr(473). The contribution of the OH group was tested with the Y473F variant using various substrates. The charged succinyl-Gly-Pro-4-nitroanilide was hydrolyzed with a much lower k(cat)/K(m) compared with the neutral benzyloxycarbonyl-G1y-Pro-2-naphthylamide, although the binding modes of the two substrates were similar, as shown by x-ray crystallography. This suggested that electrostatic interactions between Arg(643) and the succinyl group competed with the productive binding mechanism. Unlike most enzyme reactions, catalysis by the wild-type enzyme exhibited positive activation entropy. In contrast, the activation entropy for the Y473F variant was negative, suggesting that the tyrosine OH group is involved in stabilizing both the transition state and the water shell at the active site. Importantly, Tyr(473) is also implicated in the formation of the enzyme-substrate complex. The nonlinear Arrhenius plot suggested a greater significance of the oxyanion binding site at physiological temperature. The results indicated that Tyr(473) was more needed at high pH, at high temperature, and with charged substrates exhibiting "internally competitive inhibition."

Myo-inositol monophosphatase is an activated target of calbindin D28k

Calbindin D(28k) (calbindin) is a member of the calmodulin superfamily of Ca(2+)-binding proteins. An intracellular target of calbindin was discovered using bacteriophage display. Human recombinant calbindin was immobilized on magnetic beads and used in affinity purification of phage-displayed peptides from a random 12-mer peptide library. One sequence, SYSSIAKYPSHS, was strongly selected both in the presence of Mg(2+) and in the presence of Ca(2+). Homology search against the protein sequence data base identified a closely similar sequence, ISSIKEKYPSHS, at residues 55-66 in myo-inositol-1(or 4)-monophosphatase (IMPase, EC ), which constitute a strongly conserved and exposed region in the three-dimensional structure. IMPase is a key enzyme in the regulation of the activity of the phosphatidylinositol-signaling pathway. It catalyzes the hydrolysis of myo-inositol-1(or 4)-monophosphate to form free myo-inositol, maintaining a supply that represents the precursor for inositol phospholipid second messenger signaling systems. Fluorescence spectroscopy showed that isolated calbindin and IMPase interact with an apparent equilibrium dissociation constant, K(D), of 0.9 microm. Both apo and Ca(2+)-bound calbindin was found to activate IMPase up to 250-fold, depending on the pH and substrate concentration. The activation is most pronounced at conditions that otherwise lead to a very low activity of IMPase, i.e. at reduced pH and at low substrate concentration.

Identification of a novel Na+/myo-inositol cotransporter

rkST1, an orphan cDNA of the SLC5 family (43% identical in sequence to the sodium myo-inositol cotransporter SMIT), was expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes that were subsequently voltage-clamped and exposed to likely substrates. Whereas superfusion with glucose and other sugars produced a small inward current, the largest current was observed with myo-inositol. The expressed protein, which we have named SMIT2, cotransports myo-inositol with a K(m) of 120 microm and displays a current-voltage relationship similar to that seen with SMIT (now called SMIT1). The transport is Na(+)-dependent, with a K(m) of 13 mm. SMIT2 exhibits phlorizin-inhibitable presteady-state currents and substrate-independent "Na(+) leak" currents similar to those of related cotransporters. The steady-state cotransport current is also phlorizin-inhibitable with a K(i) of 76 microm. SMIT2 exhibits stereospecific cotransport of both d-glucose and d-xylose but does not transport fucose. In addition, SMIT2 (but not SMIT1) transports d-chiro-inositol. Based on previous publications, the tissue distribution of SMIT2 is different from that of SMIT1, and the existence of this second cotransporter may explain much of the heterogeneity that has been reported for inositol transport.

Iontophoresis of lithium antagonizes noradrenergic action on prefrontal neurons of the rat

Various lithium (Li(+)) compounds have been proven to be effective in the therapy of bipolar affective disorder, but their mechanism of pharmacological action is not clearly defined. In our present in vivo electrophysiological study we tested the action of microiontophoretically applied Li(+) and NE on the maintained firing activity of prefrontal cortical neurons of the rat. Target cells were located in the prelimbic cortical projection region (PrL) of the ascending norepinephrinergic pathway. Our data, collected from single unit activity of 59 PrL neurons, demonstrate that lithium can (1) suppress maintained discharge activity, or (2) antagonize both the inhibitory and excitatory modulation of firing activity elicited by NE. These effects of Li(+) were not replicable with GABA-initiated inhibition or glutamate analogue-initiated excitation of discharge activity. Our findings suggest that the action of Li(+) mainly targets the NE-coupled receptor mechanisms and, therefore, it may play an important role in stabilizing the modulation of discharge activity in the PFC caused by different extracellular levels of NE.