Pharmacopsychiatry 2005; 38 - A082
DOI: 10.1055/s-2005-918704

Identification of schizophrenia genes in an animal model for psychosis

AM Hartmann 1, JJK Genius 2, L Filep 2, H Räder 2, I Giegling 1, HJ Möller 1, D Rujescu 1
  • 1Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität LMU München, Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, München
  • 2Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München

The psychotomimetic effects of uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists such as PCP and ketamine in healthy humans and their ability to exacerbate several psychotic symptoms in schizophrenic patients have promoted a view of schizophrenia as being related to an altered glutamatergic neurotransmission. Attempts to mimic these effects in rats have led to the recognition of parallels between schizophrenia and molecular, cellular, functional and behavioural abnormalities in animals chronically treated with NMDA receptor antagonist MK801 in a low dosage (0.02mg/ kg). We performed microarray analyses comparing the expression of 28.000 genes between MK801, haloperidol and saline treated rats in order to identify candidate genes contributing to schizophrenia. We found 216 genes to be differentially expressed in hippocampus. Our findings demonstrate that a functional genomic approach can be applied in the identification of new and unexpected candidate genes for psychosis-related traits.