Is There a Gene Complex That's Linked to Premenstrual Mood Disorder?

    Research conducted by the National Institute of Health show a correlation between dysregulated expression in a suspect gene complex and a disorder in cellular response to estrogen and progesterone. Researchers have discovered possible molecular mechanisms that may determine a woman's susceptibility to severe irritability, sadness and anxiety leading up to her menstrual period. These symptoms can be classified under PMDD(premenstrual dysphoric disorder), a severe chronic disorder that affects two to five percent of women both physically and mentally. This establishes that women with PMDD have a profound difference in their molecular apparatus for response to sex hormones than a woman without PMDD. This supports the argument that PMDD symptoms are not just "emotional behaviors" women should be able to control. There is a clear cut genetic difference between women with and without PMDD. 

    In women with PMDD, researchers found turning off estrogen and progesterone eliminated PMDD symptoms, while experimentally adding back the hormones triggered the re-emergence of symptoms. This confirmed that they had a biologically-based behavioral sensitivity to the hormones that might be reflected in molecular differences detectable in their cells. This gives plausible evidence that abnormal signaling in cells is responsible for their abnormal behavior, and sensitivity to estrogen and progesterone. 

Creating Synthetic Enzymes: Engineering Disease Treating Mechanisms

 A bioengineer at the University of Texas at Dallas has successfully developed synthetic enzymes that can control the behavior of Vg1, a vital signaling molecule in the embryonic development of muscle, bone, and blood in vertebrates.

In general, learning about the molecular rules governing signal formation provides better insight into how disease-treating and disease-curing mechanisms can be developed. In this case, researchers studied the formation of Vg1 in zebrafish embryos. Researchers were interested in learning about how synthetic enzymes could control natural proteins, hoping to build biological circuits that could imbue introduced cells with new functions like cancer detection or disease resolution at the molecular level. Zebrafish were found to be an ideal model organism since they have 70% similarity to the human genome and were small enough to grow and observe under a microscope. Additionally, researchers studied the molecular interactions between Vg1 and protein Nodal, finding that they could not interact with one another due to certain chaperone-like proteins that bind to and inactivate Vg1.  Developing synthetic cleaving enzymes from a family of viruses, researchers used these to cut specific Vg1 amino acids that would activate signaling on target cells.

It was rather interesting to learn about how synthetic proteins (or enzymes rather) can have an influence on and control certain signaling proteins to direct a mechanism involving disease identification and treatment. Through this insightful research, it may be possible to integrate various functions related to those two concepts and make treatments much more efficient.

For more information regarding the information gathered, the article has been linked here and the published research study has been linked here.

Opioid Addiction and Genetic Factors

    Opioid addiction can be categorized as a chronic mental illness that may cause individuals with this disorder to go through periods of relapse and remission throughout their whole life.  This article goes into information about the biological mechanisms of opioid addiction and its receptors.  The opioid epidemic has become a nationwide issue and many suggestions have been made to help treat this illness.  A few medications- methadone, buprenorphine, and naloxone- have been show to have different effects on opioid receptors in the brain.  These medications may help but it is proven that with this the relapse and remission cycle is still highly active with it.  When people try opioids for the first time, for whatever reason that might be, they often experience a euphoric feeling that some individuals want more of.  They want to keep chasing that euphoria or it might alleviate all the pain they have been having so they keep using opioids to the point of losing control over their intake.  What is going on in the brain is that the receptors that are hit with the opioids get adjusted to the drug thus leading to a tolerance build-up.  The tolerance build-up creates a snowball effect because the body will then develop withdrawal symptoms if the individual stops using.  The symptoms can include severe muscle aches, bone pain, tearing, runny nose, diarrhea, abdominal cramping, anxiety, sweating, and agitation.   These symptoms are one of the core parts of opioid addiction and are the main reason for relapse.  Another main part of this article was the genetic susceptibility to addiction.  Twin, family, and adoption studies have proven that there are huge genetic influences on drug addiction proving that addiction is heritable.   It was shown from all these studies that children of addicts had higher rates of psychopathology.  The genetics of parents alone are not the sole cause of addiction as a whole. Actual behavior patterns of an individual such as impulsivity can make a person more likely to develop an addiction.

      It was found that there are molecular mechanisms from opioid-induced tolerance and dependence that play a role in opioid addiction as a whole.  The mechanisms involve the upregulation of cyclic AMP/protein kinase A and cAMP response element-binding signaling.  Along with this mechanism the cravings for drugs, lack of self-control, and strong response to drug-associated stimuli can be associated with cellular and molecular changes of the glutamatergic projection in the prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia region.  This all means that there are processes in the brain on the cellular level that can be the main driving cause of the burning wildfire which is addiction.  This article goes into more depth about the types of opioid receptors and how this all works.    Many genes have been found that are associated with addiction in the genome.  This article shows information about heroin addiction and how genes can be classified into two systems: the dopaminergic system and the MOR system.  This table gives an organized view of the genes related to opioid addiction.  

      

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/20/17/4294

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/upregulation

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/glutamatergic