Elevated cytokine expression in the orbitofrontal cortex of victims of suicide

Abstract

Objective-Based on the reported association between cytokines with depression and suicide, and evidence of increased markers of inflammation in the brain of suicide victims, the present study examined the expression of cytokines in the orbitofrontal cortex of suicide victims.Method-In a postmortem sample obtained from the Brodman area 11 of suicides (n = 34) and controls (n = 17), real-time RT-PCR was used to compare the expression of mRNA species for tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1β, 4, 5, 6, and 13.Results-Increased expression of IL-4 was found in women suicide victims and IL-13 in men suicide victims. Elevated but not significant cytokine expression was also observed for TNF-α in women suicide victims. • Limited information on psychiatric diagnoses and blood toxicology in the suicide group. Conclusion-To NIH Public Access

Changes in Severity of Allergy and Anxiety Symptoms Are Positively Correlated in Patients with Recurrent Mood Disorders Who Are Exposed to Seasonal Peaks of Aeroallergens

“…It is possible that the orbital cortex and its regulation of the amygdala may be affected by cytokine expression, leading to a decrease in amygdala inhibition and an increase in anxiety. We have observed increased gene expression in the cytokines involved in allergic reactions in that region of the brain in victims of suicide (36).…”

“…We have seen that sensitization and subsequent exposure to tree pollen (25) and intranasal LPS administration (35) induce anxiety-like behaviors in sensitized rodents. Additionally, we have reported increased gene expression of cytokines involved with allergic inflammation (36) in the orbital cortex of suicide victims, where histopathological changes in suicide victims have been previously reported (14).…”

Stress-induced neuroinflammation is mediated by GSK3-dependent TLR4 signaling that promotes susceptibility to depression-like behavior

“…Since hippocampal TNFα was increased after stress, many studies have linked TNFα to depression (Dantzer and Kelley 2007;Palin et al, 2008;Tonelli et al, 2008;Dean, 2011;Kaster et al, 2012;Pandey et al, 2012), and TNFα production was blocked by the antidepressant fluoxetine, we tested if blocking TNFα is sufficient to provide resistance to learned helplessness. TNFα was inhibited using either a newly developed small molecule TNFα inhibitor, Vax-ATC1, or the classical TNFα antagonist etanercept.…”

Reduced kynurenine pathway metabolism and cytokine expression in the prefrontal cortex of depressed individuals

“…The realtime PCR reaction was run on a MyiQ instrument (BioRad) with a 3step cycling program, as described previously. 38 Specific primer sets (Appendix 1, Table S1) were used under the same ampli fication condition, and relative expression was determined using the 2 DDCt method with multiple control genes for normalization 39 (Appendix 1).…”