Investigation of Wnt signaling cascade in the peripheral blood mononuclear cell of bipolar patients

  • Li Wen Hu, Brazil
  • Cristóforo Scavone, University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Elisa Brietzke, 1. Department and Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil., Brazil
  • Rodrigo Dias, 1. Department and Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, Brazil., Brazil
  • Florence Kerr-Côrrea, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
  • Elisa Kawamoto, University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • Beny Lafer, University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil

Objective: Several previous reports support that Bipolar Disorder (BD) is characterized by multi-cellular signaling abnormalities. Our objective was to measure the levels of specific components of Wnt signaling pathway in patients with bipolar disorder and compare them with those of normal control subjects.
Methods: We measured the levels of FRAT-1, GSK3β, phospho- GSK3β, β-catenin, cyclin D and cmyc (β-catenin activates the transcription of these two molecules) in the peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) by Western Blot analysis in three control subjects and four patients
Results: The preliminary results indicate that BD group presents a trend towards a decrease in the protein expression of phospho-GSK3β, an increase of β-catenin, cyclin D and cmyc in comparison to the control group.
Conclusions: The data suggest that the Wnt pathway may be involved in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder. And if these results were confirmed they could open a new avenue of investigation in neurobiology and therapeutics of BD.