Mood-stabilizers differentially affect housekeeping gene expression in human cells.

Recent studies have revealed that antidepressants affect the expression of constitutively expressed "housekeeping genes" commonly used as normalizing reference genes in quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) experiments. There has yet to be an investigation however on the effects of mood-stabilizers on housekeeping gene stability. The current study utilized lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) derived from patients with mood disorders to investigate the effects of a range of doses of lithium (0, 1, 2 and 5 mM) and sodium valproate (0, 0.

Allele-specific expression of the serotonin transporter and its transcription factors following lamotrigine treatment in vitro.

Lamotrigine, a mood stabilizer used clinically in the treatment of bipolar disorder, is thought to exert actions on the serotonin system. However lamotrigine's exact mechanism of action remains unclear. The current study investigated whether lamotrigine might exert its effects through altering the expression of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene and its regulatory transcription factors Y box binding protein 1 (YB-1) and CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF).

The interaction between child maltreatment, adult stressful life events and the 5-HTTLPR in major depression.

Both childhood maltreatment and adult stressful life events are established risk factors for the onset of depression in adulthood. However, the interaction between them can be viewed through two conflicting frameworks. Under a mismatch hypothesis stressful childhoods allow 'adaptive programming' for a stressful adulthood and so can be protective.

Stressful life events and the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) in recurrent clinical depression.

Background: An interaction between recent stressful life events (SLEs) and a serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) in depression has been inconsistently reported. Some of this variability may be due to a previous focus on sub-clinical depression, inclusion of individuals at the lower or upper ends of the age-span, or assumptions concerning the degree of dominance of the low expressing allele. Therefore, a large sample of patients with recurrent clinically diagnosed depression and controls screened for absence of depression was utilised to examine the moderating effect of each 5-HTTLPR genetic model on the association between SLEs and severe depressive episodes.

A pilot study of positive mood induction in euthymic bipolar subjects compared with healthy controls.

Background: Demonstrating differences between euthymic bipolar subjects and healthy controls in response to positive (happy) mood induction may help elucidate how mania evolves. This pilot study evaluates the Go task in a reward paradigm as a method for inducing a happy mood state and compares the response of euthymic bipolar subjects and healthy controls.

Method: The Sense of Hyperpositive Self Scale, the Tellegen positive and negative adjectives, the Global-Local task and a visual analogue scale for measuring positive affect were administered to 15 euthymic bipolar subjects and 19 age-and-sex-matched healthy control subjects before and after they had performed the Go task in a reward paradigm.