CD38 is critical for social behaviour by regulating oxytocin secretion
CD38 is critical for social behaviour by regulating oxytocin secretion
Nature 446: 41-45 (2007)
Speaker: Zsu-Wei Huang Place: Room 601
Commentator: Dr. Hsien-Yuan Lane Date: 3/28/2007 14:00~15:00
Abstract:
Oxytocin (OT), which is a post pituitary hormone releasing in a Ca2+-dependent manner, regulates not only physical functions including uterine contraction and lactation, but also social behavior. Recently, some researches show CD38-dependent Ca2+ regulation in anterior pituitary tumor cells. Thus, the authors made a hypothesis that CD38 maybe critical to affect OT secretion. First of all, the authors used CD38-deficient (CD38-/-) mother mice and found their nurturing behavior was impaired. Additionally, social recognition deficit was noted in CD38-/- male mice. Both of the behavior deficits resembled OT receptor or OT gene knockout mice and could be reversed by OT treatment. They also found significant lower concentrations of OT in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in CD38-/- mice than in wild-type, but an opposite result was observed in the hypothalamus and neurohypophysis. All of those revealed a defect of OT secretion which could be reversed by CD38 re-expression as well. It is well known that intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) is regulated by CD38, and OT secretion depends on increase of [Ca2+]i. Therefore, they found blocking transient increase of [Ca2+]i or CD38 signaling pathway could efficiently decrease OT secretion from the wild-type hypothalamic cells or nerve endings as less as the CD38-/- ones. In conclusion, they proved that CD38-dependent signaling pathway of Ca2+ regulation is critic for OT secretion.
Reference:
1. Keverne EB & Curley JP. Vasopressin, oxytocin and social behaviour. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 14: 777–783 (2004)
2. Soares SM, Thompson M & Chini EN. Role of the second-messenger cyclic-adenosine 5'-diphosphate-ribose on adrenocorticotropin secretion from pituitary cells.Endocrinology 146: 2186–2192 (2005)