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PGAM5 knockout causes depressive-like behaviors in mice via ATP deficiency in the prefrontal cortex. 2024

Weiwei Cui, and Chunhui Chen, and Liya Gong, and Junyan Wen, and Shanshan Yang, and Min Zheng, and Baogui Gao, and Junxiong You, and Xuecong Lin, and Yanyu Hao, and Zhimin Chen, and Ziqi Wu, and Liaoming Gao, and Jiayu Tang, and Zhen Yuan, and Xuegang Sun, and Linlin Jing, and Ge Wen

Department of Imaging Diagnostics, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

BACKGROUND Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects about 17% population in the world. Although abnormal energy metabolism plays an important role in the pathophysiology of MDD, however, how deficiency of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) products affects emotional circuit and what regulates ATP synthesis are still need to be elaborated. OBJECTIVE Our study aimed to investigate how deficiency of PGAM5-mediated depressive behavior. RESULTS We firstly discovered that PGAM5 knockout (PGAM5-/- ) mice generated depressive-like behaviors. The phenotype was reinforced by the observation that chronic unexpected mild stress (CUMS)-induced depressive mice exhibited lowered expression of PGAM5 in prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus (HIP), and striatum. Next, we found, with the using of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that the functional connectivity between PFC reward system and the PFC volume were reduced in PGAM5-/- mice. PGAM5 ablation resulted in the loss of dendritic spines and lowered density of PSD95 in PFC, but not in HIP. Finally, we found that PGAM5 ablation led to lowered ATP concentration in PFC, but not in HIP. Coimmunoprecipitation study showed that PGAM5 directly interacted with the ATP F1 F0 synthase without influencing the interaction between ATP F1 F0 synthase and Bcl-xl. We then conducted ATP administration to PGAM5-/- mice and found that ATP could rescue the behavioral and neuronal phenotypes of PGAM5-/- mice. CONCLUSIONS Our findings provide convincing evidence that PGAM5 ablation generates depressive-like behaviors via restricting neuronal ATP production so as to impair the number of neuronal spines in PFC.