Deletion of murine astrocytic vesicular nucleotide transporter increases anxiety and depressive-like behavior and attenuates motivation for reward

Qian Huang, Hiu Ham Lee, Bryan Volpe, Qingchen Zhang, Chang Xue, Brian C. Liu, Yahia R. Abuhasan, Lingyun Li, Jeremy S. Yang, Julie Egholm, Cristina Gutierrez-Vazquez, Allen Li, Alyssa Lee, Sharon Tang, Chun Wa Wong, Tiemin Liu, Yuan Huang, Raddy L. Ramos, Randy F. Stout, Abdelfattah El OuaamariFrancisco J. Quintana, Bradford B. Lowell, C. Ronald Kahn, Emmanuel N. Pothos, Weikang Cai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Astrocytes are multi-functional glial cells in the central nervous system that play critical roles in modulation of metabolism, extracellular ion and neurotransmitter levels, and synaptic plasticity. Astrocyte-derived signaling molecules mediate many of these modulatory functions of astrocytes, including vesicular release of ATP. In the present study, we used a unique genetic mouse model to investigate the functional significance of astrocytic exocytosis of ATP. Using primary cultured astrocytes, we show that loss of vesicular nucleotide transporter (Vnut), a primary transporter responsible for loading cytosolic ATP into the secretory vesicles, dramatically reduces ATP loading into secretory lysosomes and ATP release, without any change in the molecular machinery of exocytosis or total intracellular ATP content. Deletion of astrocytic Vnut in adult mice leads to increased anxiety, depressive-like behaviors, and decreased motivation for reward, especially in females, without significant impact on food intake, systemic glucose metabolism, cognition, or sociability. These behavioral alterations are associated with significant decreases in the basal extracellular dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens. Likewise, ex vivo brain slices from these mice show a strong trend toward a reduction in evoked dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Mechanistically, the reduced dopamine signaling we observed is likely due to an increased expression of monoamine oxidases. Together, these data demonstrate a key modulatory role of astrocytic exocytosis of ATP in anxiety, depressive-like behavior, and motivation for reward, by regulating the mesolimbic dopamine circuitry.

Original languageEnglish
JournalMolecular Psychiatry
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2024.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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