Charité Center for Internal Medicine and Dermatology, Department for Psychosomatic Medicine, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
Charité Center for Internal Medicine and Dermatology, Department for Psychosomatic Medicine, Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany; Department of Internal Medicine, Helios Kliniken GmbH, Rottweil, Germany; Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Brain Res. 2020 Sep 15;1743:146904. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146904. Epub 2020 May 28.
Phoenixin is a recently discovered peptide, which has been associated with reproduction, anxiety and food intake. Based on a considerable co-localization it has been linked to nesfatin-1, with a possible antagonistic mode of action. Since nesfatin-1 is known to play a role in anxiety and the response to stress, this study aims to investigate the effects of a well-established psychological stress model, restraint stress, on phoenixin-expressing brain nuclei and phoenixin expression in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to restraint stress (n = 8) or left undisturbed (control, n = 6) and the brains processed for c-Fos- and phoenixin immunohistochemistry. The number of c-Fos expressing cells was counted and phoenixin expression assessed semiquantitatively. Restraint stress significantly increased c-Fos expression in the dorsal motor nucleus of vagus nerve (DMN, 52-fold, p < 0.001), raphe pallidus (RPa, 15-fold, p < 0.001), medial part of the nucleus of the solitary tract (mNTS, 16-fold, p < 0.001), central amygdaloid nucleus, medial division (CeM, 9-fold, p = 0.01), supraoptic nucleus (SON, 9-fold, p < 0.001) and the arcuate nucleus (Arc, 2.5-fold, p < 0.03) compared to control animals. Also phoenixin expression significantly increased in the DMN (17-fold, p < 0.001), RPa (2-fold, p < 0.001) and mNTS (1.6-fold, p < 0.001) with positive correlations between c-Fos and phoenixin (r = 0.74-0.85; p < 0.01) in these nuclei. This pattern of activation suggests an involvement of phoenixin in response to restraint stress. Whether phoenixin mediates stress effects or is activated in a counterbalancing fashion will have to be further investigated.
凤凰素是一种新发现的肽，与生殖、焦虑和摄食有关。基于大量的共定位，它与 nesfatin-1 有关，可能具有拮抗作用模式。由于 nesfatin-1 已知在焦虑和应激反应中发挥作用，因此本研究旨在研究一种成熟的心理应激模型，束缚应激对表达凤凰素的脑核和大鼠中凤凰素表达的影响。雄性 Sprague-Dawley 大鼠接受束缚应激（n=8）或不受干扰（对照，n=6），并对大脑进行 c-Fos 和凤凰素免疫组织化学处理。计数表达 c-Fos 的细胞数，并半定量评估凤凰素表达。束缚应激显著增加了迷走神经背核（DMN，52 倍，p<0.001）、苍白球（RPa，15 倍，p<0.001）、孤束核内侧部分（mNTS，16 倍，p<0.001）、中央杏仁核、内侧部（CeM，9 倍，p=0.01）、视上核（SON，9 倍，p<0.001）和弓状核（Arc，2.5 倍，p<0.03）中 c-Fos 的表达。与对照动物相比。DMN（17 倍，p<0.001）、RPa（2 倍，p<0.001）和 mNTS（1.6 倍，p<0.001）中凤凰素的表达也显著增加，这些核中 c-Fos 和凤凰素之间存在正相关（r=0.74-0.85；p<0.01）。这种激活模式表明凤凰素参与了对束缚应激的反应。凤凰素是否介导应激效应或以拮抗方式被激活，还需要进一步研究。
