中国神经再生研究(英文版) ›› 2023, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (5): 1004-1008.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.355752

• 综述:神经损伤修复保护与再生 • 上一篇    下一篇

神经类固醇作为压力调节剂和神经治疗剂:视网膜的教训

  

  • 出版日期:2023-05-15 发布日期:2022-11-01

Neurosteroids as stress modulators and neurotherapeutics: lessons from the retina

Yukitoshi Izumi1, #, Makoto Ishikawa2, 3, #, Toru Nakazawa2, 3, 4, 5, Hiroshi Kunikata3, 4, Kota Sato2, 5, Douglas F. Covey1, 6, #br# Charles F. Zorumski1, * #br#   

  1. 1Department of Psychiatry and Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA;  2Department of Ophthalmic Imaging and Information Analytics, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan; 3Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan;  4Department of Retinal Disease Control, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan;  5Department of Advanced Ophthalmic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan;  6Department of Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA
  • Online:2023-05-15 Published:2022-11-01
  • Contact: Charles F. Zorumski, MD, zorumskc@wustl.edu.
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by MH101874, MH114866, MH122379 from the National Institute of Mental Health (to CFZ); the Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Research and the Bantly Foundation (to CFZ). 

摘要: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9704-5154 (Charles F. Zorumski) 

Abstract: Neurosteroids are rapidly emerging as important new therapies in neuropsychiatry, with one such agent, brexanolone, already approved for treatment of postpartum depression, and others on the horizon. These steroids have unique properties, including neuroprotective effects that could benefit a wide range of brain illnesses including depression, anxiety, epilepsy, and neurodegeneration. Over the past 25 years, our group has developed ex vivo rodent models to examine factors contributing to several forms of neurodegeneration in the retina. In the course of this work, we have developed a model of acute closed angle glaucoma that involves incubation of ex vivo retinas under hyperbaric conditions and results in neuronal and axonal changes that mimic glaucoma. We have used this model to determine neuroprotective mechanisms that could have therapeutic implications. In particular, we have focused on the role of both endogenous and exogenous neurosteroids in modulating the effects of acute high pressure.  Endogenous allopregnanolone, a major stress-activated neurosteroid in the brain and retina, helps to prevent severe pressure-induced retinal excitotoxicity but is unable to protect against degenerative changes in ganglion cells and their axons under hyperbaric conditions. However, exogenous allopregnanolone, at a pharmacological concentration, completely preserves retinal structure and does so by combined effects on gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors and stimulation of the cellular process of macroautophagy. Surprisingly, the enantiomer of allopregnanolone, which is inactive at gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors, is equally retinoprotective and acts primarily via autophagy. Both enantiomers are also equally effective in preserving retinal structure and function in an in vivo glaucoma model. These studies in the retina have important implications for the ongoing development of allopregnanolone and other neurosteroids as therapeutics for neuropsychiatric illnesses.

Key words: allopregnanolone, autophagy, enantiomers, excitotoxicity, gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptors, glaucoma, optic nerve, oxysterols