The great (mouse) depression
Preclinical models of depression are generally unable to account for genetic variations that predispose certain people to the disorder. Consequently, proof of efficacy in animal models of depression is even less predictive of efficacy in humans than it is for many other indications. A group at Duke University now is offering a strategy for designing animals with genetic vulnerability to depression.1
As reported last month in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jean-Martin Beaulieu and colleagues engineered mice to express the murine equivalent of a rare SNP in a gene that codes for tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2), one of two enzymes in the serotonin (5-HT) biosynthetic pathway. Beaulieu was formerly at Duke and is now assistant professor and Canadian research chair in molecular psychiatry at the Centre de recherche de l'Universit Laval Robert-Giffard (CRULRG)...