Department of Food and Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, Ami 300-0393, Japan.
United Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu 183-8509, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jan 8;24(2):1237. doi: 10.3390/ijms24021237.
Psychosocial stress precipitates mental illnesses, such as depression, and increases the risk of other health problems, including cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we observed the effects of psychosocial stress on the histopathological features of systemic organs and tissues in a mouse psychosocial stress model, namely the subchronic and mild social defeat stress (sCSDS) model. There were several pathological findings in the tissues of both sCSDS and control mice. Mild fibrosis of the heart was observed in sCSDS mice but not in control mice. Extramedullary hematopoiesis in the spleen and hemorrhage in the lungs were observed in both the control and sCSDS mice. Focal necrosis of the liver was seen only in control mice. Furthermore, putrefactive substances in the blood plasma were analyzed because these metabolites originating from intestinal fermentation might be linked to heart fibrosis. Among them, plasma -cresyl glucuronide and -cresyl sulfate concentrations significantly increased owing to subchronic social defeat stress, which might influence cardiac fibrosis in sCSDS mice. In conclusion, several pathological features such as increased cardiac fibrosis and elevated plasma putrefactive substances were found in sCSDS mice. Thus, sCSDS mice are a potential model for elucidating the pathophysiology of psychosocial stress and heart failure.
心理社会应激会引发抑郁症等精神疾病，并增加其他健康问题的风险，包括心血管疾病。在这项研究中，我们观察了心理社会应激对慢性轻度社交挫败应激（sCSDS）小鼠模型中系统性器官和组织组织病理学特征的影响。在 sCSDS 组和对照组小鼠的组织中均观察到了几种病理发现。sCSDS 组小鼠的心脏有轻度纤维化，但对照组小鼠没有。sCSDS 组和对照组小鼠的脾脏均有髓外造血，肺部有出血。只有对照组小鼠的肝脏有局灶性坏死。此外，还分析了血浆中的腐殖质物质，因为这些来源于肠道发酵的代谢物可能与心脏纤维化有关。其中，由于慢性社交挫败应激，血浆对羟甲苯葡萄糖醛酸和对羟甲苯硫酸盐的浓度显著增加，这可能会影响 sCSDS 小鼠的心脏纤维化。总之，在 sCSDS 小鼠中发现了几种病理特征，如心脏纤维化增加和血浆腐殖质物质升高。因此，sCSDS 小鼠是阐明心理社会应激和心力衰竭病理生理学的潜在模型。
