OLIGODENDTROCYTE STRESS PROTEIN & BRIGHT LIGHT INDUCTION OF STRESS



OLIGODENDTROCYTE STRESS PROTEIN:
Stress proteins or heat shock proteins (HSP) play a role in normal CNS development and function, and are enhanced after traumatic injury of the brain and during neurodegenerative diseases (Brown, 1994; Marcucilli and Miller, 1994). Their involvement in autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), has been suggested (Birnbaum, 1995; Brosnan et al., 1996; Van Noort et al., 1995). Stress proteins are induced by a variety of stress situations, including hyperthermia, viral infection, ischemia, anoxia and oxidative stress, and many of them are also constitutively expressed (Birnbaum, 1995). Constitutively expressed HSP function as molecular chaperones and participate in protein synthesis, protein folding, transport and translocalization processes.

Stress proteins serve as biomarkers to identify the contribution of stress situations underlying the pathogenesis of degenerative diseases of the CNS. Oxidative stress has been implicated in the pathogenesis of MS, and specifically, HSP32/HO-1 might indicate oxidative stress and is involved in antioxidant defence mechanisms, but so far has not been investigated in myelinating cells. To further characterize the stress responses in oligodendrocytes and possible consequences for demyelinating diseases, we have analyzed the constitutive and inducible occurrence of stress proteins in cultured rat brain oligodendrocytes using a panel of antibodies directed against HSP/HSC70, HSP60, HSP25, αBcrystallin and HSP32/HO-1. The data demonstrate that oligodendrocytes differentially up-regulate HSPs after heat shock and oxidative stress, and that oxidative stress, but not heat stress, leads to the induction of HSP32/HO-1. Hence, HSP32/HO-1 might represent a useful marker to further elucidate the possible involvement of oxidative stress in inflammatory demyelinating diseases.

BRIGHT LIGHT INDUCTION OF STRESS:
           
            Light is an important environmental factor for regulation of mood. As rats are nocturnal and are sensitive to extreme bright light environment, light illumination was selected in the current study as a stressor for the stress-induced depression models. Serotonergic neurons may play a particularly important role in the facilitation of anxiety-related physiological or behavioural responses. A wealth of evidence supports an association between the neuronal activity of brainstem serotonergic neurons and the level of somatic motor activity or behavioural arousal on exposure to uncontrollable stress or other anxiety related stimuli including anxiogenic drugs and social defeat. Bright light can be used as an effective aversive stimulus leading to an increase in avoidance behaviours. Exposure of rats to the HL (1000–1200 lux) condition performed in the current study was comparable to previous behavioural studies using a similar behavioural test arena for an alternative anxiety paradigm, i.e. the social interaction test which will be a suitable model for analyzing the light induced variations in the brain.( Adriaan et al., 2007)
           
Light-induced modulations of brain activity while participants are engaged in non visual cognitive tasks were detected in numerous areas including: alertness-related subcortical structures such as the brainstem, in a location compatible with the locus coeruleus (LC) (Vandewalle, et al., 2007); the hypothalamus, in a location encompassing the SCN (Perrin, et al., 2004); and dorsal and posterior parts of thalamus, but also in long-term memory and emotion-related areas such as the hippocampus and amygdale (Vandewalle, et al., 2006)
          
 The aim of the stress research was to develop drugs and methods able to stimulate the intrinsic adaptive mechanisms of the organism to help it survive in situations of intense or prolonged stress, whilst preferably maintaining the capability for physical and mental work (Meerson, 1984).

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