Lithium chloride induces partial responsiveness to LPS in nonresponder B cells

Review of lithium effects on brain and blood

Clinicians have long used lithium to treat manic depression. They have also observed that lithium causes granulocytosis and lymphopenia while it enhances immunological activities of monocytes and lymphocytes. In fact, clinicians have long used lithium to treat granulocytopenia resulting from radiation and chemotherapy, to boost immunoglobulins after vaccination, and to enhance natural killer activity. Recent studies revealed a mechanism that ties together these disparate effects of lithium. Lithium acts through multiple pathways to inhibit glycogen synthetase kinase-3beta (GSK3 beta). This enzyme phosphorylates and inhibits nuclear factors that turn on cell growth and protection programs, including the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) and WNT/beta-catenin. In animals, lithium upregulates neurotrophins, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor, neurotrophin-3 (NT3), as well as receptors to these growth factors in brain. Lithium also stimulates proliferation of stem cells, including bone marrow and neural stem cells in the subventricular zone, striatum, and forebrain. The stimulation of endogenous neural stem cells may explain why lithium increases brain cell density and volume in patients with bipolar disorders. Lithium also increases brain concentrations of the neuronal markers n-acetyl-aspartate and myoinositol. Lithium also remarkably protects neurons against glutamate, seizures, and apoptosis due to a wide variety of neurotoxins. The effective dose range for lithium is 0.6-1.0 mM in serum and >1.5 mM may be toxic. Serum lithium levels of 1.5-2.0 mM may have mild and reversible toxic effects on kidney, liver, heart, and glands. Serum levels of >2 mM may be associated with neurological symptoms, including cerebellar dysfunction. Prolonged lithium intoxication >2 mM can cause permanent brain damage. Lithium has low mutagenic and carcinogenic risk. Lithium is still the most effective therapy for depression. It "cures" a third of the patients with manic depression, improves the lives of about a third, and is ineffective in about a third. Recent studies suggest that some anticonvulsants (i.e., valproate, carbamapazine, and lamotrigene) may be useful in patients that do not respond to lithium. Lithium has been reported to be beneficial in animal models of brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spinal cord injury, and other conditions. Clinical trials assessing the effects of lithium are under way. A recent clinical trial suggests that lithium stops the progression of ALS.

Infection, treatment and immune response in patients with bipolar disorder versus patients with major depression, schizophrenia or healthy controls

Bipolar disorder is the least studied among the three major psychiatric disorders of schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. Furthermore, investigations on infection and immunity in bipolar disorder make up only a small portion of the sparse research done on this disorder. However, there are reports that modulation of the immune system and certain infections might be associated with bipolar disorder and that there might be differences between bipolar and the other disorders. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review published data on these issues in bipolar versus the other disorders, and to present an ongoing clinical study on the putative involvement of infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in these three major psychiatric disorders.

Structural features involved in the mitogenic activity of Bordetella pertussis lipopolysaccharides for spleen cells of C3H/HeJ mice

Spleen cells from the C3H/HeJ mouse strain cannot be stimulated by many smooth-type lipopolysaccharides (LPSs), and by the main biologically-active region (lipid A) of these molecules. The genetic origin of this defect (expression of the mutant allele Lpsd at the chromosome 4 locus) was established over 20 years ago, but its biochemical nature has remained undefined. Several investigators have noted, however, that some particular LPSs can bypass this defect, and stimulate the proliferation of C3H/HeJ B lymphocytes. In this study we compare the mitogenic activities of the LPSs isolated from a wild strain (1414) and from a mutant 'rough' strain (A100) of Bordetella pertussis. Both LPS-1414 and LPS-A100 were mitogenic for C3H/HeJ spleen cells, but their lipid A fragments were not. This indicates that a carbohydrate structure proximal to lipid A is involved in the mitogenic activity. However, the isolated polysaccharides were not mitogenic. Four sugars are common to both LPS-1414 and LPS-A100: an heptose, and three sugars bearing free amino groups. After removal of these four sugars from the LPSs by nitrous acid treatment, the recovered lipooligosaccharides were not mitogenic in Lpsd spleen cells. The results suggest that substructures present in lipid A and in this group of four sugars are both required for induction of a mitogenic effect in Lpsd splenocytes, whereas lipid A alone can stimulate Lpsn spleen cells.

Oral adjuvants for viral vaccines in humans

The availability of various viral vaccines prompted extensive studies on oral adjuvants. In this study, parotid protein (parotin), taurine and lithium were chosen as safe and potent oral adjuvants for rubella and influenza virus vaccines. The anti-rubella virus antibody titres in persons administered orally with parotin were significantly higher than those of persons with the non-adjuvanted vaccines. The combinations of oral adjuvants were used for vaccination with trivalent influenza vaccines. Each group, receiving taurine, taurine + lithium, taurine + parotin or taurine + parotin + lithium, was higher in the magnitude of increased influenza virus antibody titres than the non-adjuvant control group. Although taurine was shown to be an effective adjuvant in taurine responders but not in taurine non-responders, the combination of taurine, lithium and/or parotin gave higher increased rate of influenza antibody titres than with taurine alone. These results have shown to be a valuable approach to the clinical use of oral adjuvants.

Modification of lipopolysaccharide non-responder cells in low cell density culture

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) fails to induce polyclonal antibody responses in LPS non-responder C3H/HeJ mice in vivo and also in in vitro cultures of 10(7) cells/ml of C3H/HeJ spleen cells. However, this study shows that LPS elicits polyclonal antibody synthesis in low cell density cultures of C3H/HeJ cells by activation of a translational process without an increase in total RNA and messenger RNA synthesis. Polyclonal antibody synthesis by LPS non-responder cells in low cell density culture was significantly increased by LPS in either serum-free medium or medium containing serum. LPS-induced antibody production by LPS non-responder cells in low cell density was not due to the relative elevation of LPS concentrations.