Abstract
Single or repeated exposure to psychostimulants such as amphetamines and cocaine after postnatal week 3 leads to an enduring enhancement in the psychotomimetic responses elicited by a subsequent challenge of a stimulant in rodents. This behavioral sensitization phenomenon has been considered to be the neural consequences of stimulant-induced alterations in gene expression in the brain after a critical period of postnatal development. Using a differential cloning technique, RNA arbitrarily primed PCR, we have now identified from the rat neocortex a novel and developmentally regulated methamphetamine (MAP)-inducible gene mrt1 (MAP responsive transcript 1). mrt1 encodes two major types of PDZ- and PX-domains containing proteins of approximately 62 kDa in size with different carboxy termini, Mrt1a and Mrt1b. The mrt1 mRNAs for Mrt1a, mrt1a, and for Mrt1b, mrt1b, are predominantly expressed in various brain regions and the testes, respectively. Acute MAP injection upregulated mrt1b expression in the neocortex after postnatal week 3 in a D1 receptor antagonist-sensitive manner without affecting mrt1a expression. This upregulation was mimicked by another stimulant, cocaine, whereas pentobarbital and D1 antagonist failed to change the mrt1b transcript levels. Moreover, repeated daily treatment of MAP, but not MAP plus D1 antagonist, for 5 days caused an augmentation of the basal expression of mrt1b 2 and 3 weeks after the drug discontinuation. These late-developing, cocaine-crossreactive, D1 antagonist-sensitive and long-term regulations of mrt1b by MAP are similar to the pharmacological profiles of stimulant-induced behavioral sensitization, and therefore may be associated with the initiation and/or maintenance of the long-term neuronal adaptation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Seiden L, Sabol K, Ricaurte G . Amphetamine: effects on catecholamine systems and behavior. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol 1993; 33: 639–677.
Robinson TE, Becker JB . Enduring changes in brain and behavior produced by chronic amphetamine administration: a review and evaluation of animal models of amphetamine psychosis. Brain Res 1986; 396: 157–198.
Kalivas PW, Stewart J . Dopamine transmission in the initiation and expression of drug- and stress-induced sensitization of motor activity. Brain Res Rev 1991; 16: 223–244.
Robinson TE, Berridge KC . The neural basis of drug craving: an incentive-sensitization theory of addiction. Brain Res Brain Res Rev 1993; 18: 247–291.
Sato M, Chen CC, Akiyama K, Otsuki S . Acute exacerbation of paranoid psychotic state after long-term abstinence in patients with previous methamphetamine psychosis. Biol Psychiatry 1983; 18: 429–440.
Berke JD,, Hyman SE . Addiction, dopamine, and the molecular mechanisms of memory. Neuron 2000; 25: 515–532.
Nestler EJ . Molecular basis of long-term plasticity underlying addiction. Nat Rev Neurosci 2001; 2: 119–128.
Vanderschuren LJ, Kalivas PW . Alterations in dopaminergic and glutamatergic transmission in the induction and expression of behavioral sensitization: a critical review of preclinical studies. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2000; 151: 99–120.
Karler R, Finnegan KT, Calder LD . Blockade of behavioral sensitization to cocaine and amphetamine by inhibitors of protein synthesis. Brain Res 1993; 603: 19–24.
Shimosato K, Saito T . Suppresive effect of cycloheximide on behavioral sensitization to methamphetamine in mice. Eur J Pharmacol 1993; 234: 67–75.
Wang X-B, Funada M, Imai Y, Revay RS, Ujike H, Vandenbergh DJ et al. rGβ1: a psychostimulant-regulated gene essential for establishing cocaine sensitization. J Neurosci 1997; 17: 5993–6000.
Flores C, Samaha AN, Stewart J . Requirement of endogenous basic fibroblast growth factor for sensitization to amphetamine. J Neurosci 2000; 20, RC55.
Hashimoto T, Kajii Y, Nishikawa T . Psychotomimetic-induction of tissue plasminogen activator mRNA in corticostriatal neurons in rat brain. Eur J Neurosci 1998; 10: 3387–3399.
Fujiwara Y, Kazahaya M, Nakashima M, Otsuki S . Behavioral sensitization to methamphetamine in the rat: an ontogenic study. Psychopharmacology 1987; 91: 316–319.
Kolta MG, Scalzo FM, Ali SF, Holson RR . Ontogeny of the enhanced behavioral response to amphetamine in amphetamine-pretreated rats. Psychopharmacology 1990; 100: 377–382.
Murata M, Kashiwa A, Oshima A, Umino A, Kurachi M, Nishikawa T . Nomifensine-induced c-fos mRNA expression in discrete brain areas of the developing rat. Neurosci Lett 2001; 303: 99–102.
Morgan JI, Curran T . Stimulus-transcription coupling in the nervous system: involvement of inducible proto-oncogenes fos and jun. Ann Rev Neurosci 1991; 14: 421–451.
Kosofsky BE, Genova LM, Hyman SE . Postnatal age defines specificity of immediate early gene induction by cocaine in developing rat brain. J Comp Neurol 1995; 351: 27–40.
Nishikawa T, Umino A, Kashiwa A, Ooshima A, Nomura N, Takahashi K Stimulant-induced behavioral sensitization and cerebral neurotransmission. In: Toru M (ed). Neurotransmitters in Neuronal Plasticity and Psychiatric Disorders. Excerpta Medica: Tokyo, 1993, pp 53–62.
Nishikawa T, Kajii Y, Hiraoka S, Fujiyama K, Sato D, Toda S et al. A molecular pharmacological approach to neural dysfunction in schizophrenia. Neurosci Res Suppl 1998; 22: S8.
Umino A, Nishikawa T, Takahashi K Methamphetamine-induced nuclear c-Fos in rat brain regions. Neurochem Int 1995; 26: 85–90.
Welsh J, Chada K, Dalal SS, Cheng R, Ralph D, McClelland M . Artitrarily primed PCR fingerprinting of RNA. Nucleic Acids Res 1992; 20: 4965–4970.
Nishikawa T, Mataga N, Takashima M, Toru M . Behavioral sensitization and relative hyperresponsiveness of striatal and limbic dopaminergic neurons after repeated methamphetamine treatment. Eur J Pharmacol 1983; 88: 195–203.
Foley KP, Leonard MW, Engel JD . Quantitation of RNA using the polymerase chain reaction. Trends Genet 1993; 9: 380–385.
Lombardo AJ, Brown GB . A quantitative and specific method for measuring transcript levels of highly homologous genes. Nucleic Acids Res 1996; 24: 4812–4816.
Zhuang S-H, Kittler J, Grigorenko EV, Kirby MT, Sim LJ, Hampson RE et al. Effect of long-term exposure to Δ9-THC on expression of cannabinoid receptor (CB1) mRNA in different rat brain regions. Mol Brain Res 1998; 62: 141–149.
Carlin RK, Grab DJ, Cohen RS, Siekevitz P . Isolation and characterization of postsynaptic densities from various brain regions: enrichment of different types of postsynaptic densities. J Cell Biol 1980; 86: 831–843.
Walch-Solimena C, Blasi J, Edelmann L, Chapman ER, von Mollard GF, Jahn R . The t-SNAREs syntaxin 1 and SNAP-25 are present on organelles that participate in synaptic vesicle recycling. J Cell Biol 1995; 128: 637–645.
Sheng M, Tsaur M-L, Jan YN, Jan LY . Subcellular segregation of two A-type K+ Channel proteins in rat central neurons. Neuron 1992; 9: 271–284.
Cho K-O, Hunt CA, Kennedy MB . The rat brain postsynaptic density fraction contains a homolog of the Drosophila discs-large tumor suppressor protein. Neuron 1992; 9: 929–942.
Hata Y, Nakanishi H, Takai Y . Synaptic PDZ domain-containing proteins. Neurosci Res 1998; 32: 1–7.
Pham TA, Impey S, Storm DR, Stryker MP . CRE-mediated gene transcription in neocortical neuronal plasticity during the developmental critical period. Neuron 1999; 22: 63–72.
Kumari M . Differential effects of chronic ethanol treatment on N-methyl-D-aspartate R1 splice variants in fetal cortical neurons.J Biol Chem 2001; 276: 29 764–29 771.
Fanning AS, Anderson JM . Protein modules as organizers of membrane structure. Curr Opin Cell Biol 1999; 11: 432–439.
Hiroaki H, Ito T, Sumimoto H, Kohda D . Solution structure of the PX domain, a target of the SH3 domain. Nat Struct Biol 2001; 8: 526–530.
Dawirs RR, Teuchert-Noodt G,, Busse M . Single doses of methamphetamine cause changes in the density of dendritic spines in the prefrontal cortex of gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). Neuropharmacology 1991; 30: 275–282.
Robinson TE, Kolb B . Persistent structural modifications in nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex neurons produced by previous experience with amphetamine. J Neurosci 1997; 17: 8491–8497.
Hope BT, Nye HE, Kelz MB, Self DW, Iadarola MJ, Nakabeppu Y et al. Induction of a long-lasting AP-1 complex composed of altered Fos-like proteins in brain by chronic cocaine and other chronic treatments. Neuron 1994; 13: 1235–1244.
Chen J, Kelz MB, Hope BT, Nakabeppu Y, Nestler EJ . Chronic Fos-related antigens: stable variants of ΔFosB induced in brain by chronic treatments. J Neurosci 1997; 17: 4933–4941.
Cha X-Y, Pierce RC, Kalivas PW, Mackler SA . NAC-1, a rat brain mRNA, is increased in the nucleus accumbens three weeks after chronic cocaine self-administration. J Neurosci 1997; 17: 6864–6871.
Bibb JA, Chen J, Taylor JR, Svenningsson P, Nishi A, Snyder GL et al. Effects of chronic exposure to cocaine are regulated by the neuronal protein Cdk5. Nature 2001; 410: 376–380.
Kalivas PW, Duffy P, Mackler SA . Interrupted expression of NAC-1 augments the behavioral responses to cocaine. Synapse 1999; 33, 153–159.
Mackler SA, Korutla L, Cha X-Y, Koebbe MJ, Fournier KM, Bowers MS et al. NAC-1 is a brain POZ/BTB protein that can prevent cocaine-induced sensitization in the rat. J Neurosci 2000; 20: 6210–6217.
Flores C, Rodaros D,, Stewart J . Long-lasting induction of astrocytic basic fibroblast growth factor by repeated injections of amphetamine: blockade by concurrent treatment with a glutamate antagonist. J Neurosci 1998; 18: 9547–9555.
Acknowledgements
We thank Ms M Asakawa and M Kurita for their excellent assistance. This work was partly supported by research grants from the Ministry of Health and Wealth, Japan, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan, and the Social Insurance Agency Contract Fund Commissioned to the Japan Health Sciences Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kajii, Y., Muraoka, S., Hiraoka, S. et al. A developmentally regulated and psychostimulant-inducible novel rat gene mrt1 encoding PDZ-PX proteins isolated in the neocortex. Mol Psychiatry 8, 434–444 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001258
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001258
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Sorting Out Sorting Nexins Functions in the Nervous System in Health and Disease
Molecular Neurobiology (2021)
-
A defect in the retromer accessory protein, SNX27, manifests by infantile myoclonic epilepsy and neurodegeneration
neurogenetics (2015)
-
Loss of sorting nexin 27 contributes to excitatory synaptic dysfunction by modulating glutamate receptor recycling in Down's syndrome
Nature Medicine (2013)
-
An anxiogenic drug, FG 7142, induced an increase in mRNA of Btg2 and Adamts1 in the hippocampus of adult mice
Behavioral and Brain Functions (2012)
-
Emerging roles for G protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels in health and disease
Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2010)