Anti - stress gene

"Jumping" gene Linked to Cancer may Suppress Fear and Depression

Tatiana Matveeva, "Scientific Russia"

Experiments on mice have shown that the TOB gene, known for its role in the development of cancer, allows you to resist psychological stress. The discovery could have huge implications for the therapy of mental stress, reports Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan). The results of a study combining molecular biology with neurology are presented in the journal Translational Psychiatry (Youssef et al., TOB is an effector of the hippocampus-mediated acute stress response).

The conclusion that the TOB gene is associated with anxiety, fear and depression was made on the basis of several different experiments. In the first, the scientists saw that under stress, the level of the TOB protein increases in mice. The second experiment showed that genetically modified mice without this gene have increased symptoms of depression, fear and anxiety. For example, when mice with the TOB gene were placed in a bucket of water, they actively swam and tried to escape. However, a mouse without this gene just passively swam. This lack of will and motivation to deal with a difficult situation is one of the ways in which researchers have determined that the animal is depressed.

Moreover, mice without the TOB gene could not get used to an unfamiliar place. When animals are placed day after day in a place that evokes memories of fear, they usually gradually calm down and stop being afraid. But those rodents that did not have the TOB gene still showed an increased level of fear - they froze — even after a few days.

Using MRI, the team found that the connection between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex–two key sites regulating the brain's stress tolerance—changed when the TOB gene was removed. The researchers decided to look at the specific role that the gene plays in the hippocampus. They took mice without the TOB gene and injected this gene into the hippocampus (while TOB was removed from all other cells of the body). The level of fear and depression returned to normal, but the mice still had increased anxiety. Then the scientists did the opposite: they modified a mouse that did not have the TOB gene in the cells of the hippocampus, but it was in the cells of the rest of the body. In this case, the mice had normal levels of anxiety, but increased levels of fear and depression.

The TOB gene was first described in Japan in 1996. Its name is a reference to the Japanese verb "tobu", which means "to fly" or "jump". This is due to the fact that when a cell is exposed to a stimulus, its protein level increases dramatically.

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