Vibi D

Schizophrenia affects nearly 1% of the population and is clinically characterized by positive symptoms (e.g. delusions and hallucinations), negative symptoms (e.g. affective flattening, apathy and social withdrawal) and cognitive dysfunction. Genetic susceptibility factors for schizophrenia, such as neuregulinl, dysbindin and disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), have recently been reported, some of which play a role in neurodevelopment. Furthermore, epidemiologic studies suggest that environmental insults, such as prenatal infection and perinatal complication, are involved in the development of schizophrenia. The possible interaction between environment and genetic susceptibility factors is proposed as a promising disease etiology of schizophrenia. Polyriboinosinic-polyribocytidylic acid (polyI:C), a toll-like receptor 3 ligand, induces a strong innate immune response. Maternal immune activation by polyI:C exposure in rodents induces a wide spectrum of behavioral and neurochemical abnormalities in adult offspring. We have reported that neonatal injection of polyI:C in mice results in schizophrenia-like behavioral abnormalities in adulthood. In this review, we show how gene-environment interactions during neurodevelopment result in phenotypic changes in adulthood, by injecting polyI:C into transgenic mice that express a dominant-negative form of human DISC1 (DN-DISC1). Our findings suggest that polyI:C-treated DN-DISC1 mice are a validated animal model for schizophrenia with gene-environment interactions.

Histone modifications and DNA methylation represent central dynamic and reversible processes that regulate gene expression and contribute to cellular phenotypes. These epigenetic marks have been shown to play fundamental roles in a diverse set of signaling and behavioral outcomes. Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression are complex and heterogeneous diseases with multiple and independent factors that may contribute to their pathophysiology, making challenging to find a link between specific elements and the underlying mechanisms responsible for the disorder and its treatment. Growing evidences suggest that epigenetic modifications in certain brain regions and neural circuits represent a key mechanism through which environmental factors interact with individual's genetic constitution to affect risk of psychiatric conditions throughout life. This review focuses on recent advances that directly implicate epigenetic modifications in schizophrenia and antipsychotic drug action.

The serotonergic and glutamatergic neurotransmitter systems have been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, and increasing evidence shows that they interact functionally. Of note, the Gq/11-coupled serotonin 5-HT2A (5-HT2A) and the Gi/o-coupled metabotropic glutamate type 2 (mGlu2) receptors have been demonstrated to assemble into a functional heteromeric complex that modulates the function of each individual receptor. For conformation of the heteromeric complex, corresponding transmembrane-4 segment of 5-HT2A and mGlu2 are required. The 5-HT2A/mGlu2 heteromeric complex is necessary for the activation of Gq/11 proteins and for the subsequent increase in the levels of the intracellular messenger Ca2+. Furthermore, signaling via the heteromeric complex is dysregulated in the post-mortem brains of patients with schizophrenia, and could be linked to altered cortical function. From a behavioral perspective, this complex contributes to the hallucinatory and antipsychotic behaviors associated with 5-HT2A and mGlu2/3 agonists, respectively. Synaptic and epigenetic mechanisms have also been found to be significantly associated with the mGlu2/5-HT2A heteromeric complex. This review summarizes the role of crosstalk between mGlu2 and 5-HT2A in the mechanism of antipsychotic effects and introduces recent key advancements on this topic.