Anxiety and depression rates have been increasing worldwide for decades, a trend that has been sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the results of new research, led by Frank Schroeder of the Boyce Thomson Institute in the US, might lead to new treatments to help ease this global mental health burden, Neuroscience News reports, citing Nature Chemical Biology.
main weapon
First discovered in the 1930s, serotonin is a neurotransmitter that mediates multiple behaviors such as feeding, sleep, mood and cognition. Medications, which alter serotonin levels, are the main weapon in treating psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression as well as eating disorders.
As a simple model for neurobiology research, the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans has been used extensively to study the role of serotonin in regulating behavior and food intake. For many years, researchers believed that serotonin is formed in C. elegans through a specific molecular pathway, and then rapidly degraded. The experiments of Schroeder’s team and colleagues at Columbia University now prove that these assumptions are somewhat correct.
parallel biological pathway
Schroeder and his colleagues got to work regarding three years ago, when they unexpectedly discovered an enzyme that converts serotonin into derivative compounds.
“We discovered a second parallel biosynthetic pathway that accounts for regarding half of the total serotonin produced in our model system,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder explained: “A lot of scientists think that serotonin is made and then degrades quickly, but we discovered that it is used as a building block for other compounds that are responsible for some of serotonin’s activity. So, we decided to start from the beginning and see how serotonin is made, and once it’s synthesized, how it is converted into this new molecules.”
The new serotonin derivatives affect feeding behavior, added Jingfang Yu, a graduate student in Schroeder’s lab and the study’s first investigator.
binge relieving
It was discovered that “this behavior can be mitigated by treating the worms with serotonin derivatives, indicating that these newly identified compounds contribute to the effects previously attributed to serotonin,” Jingfang explained.
The worm C. elegans is an excellent model for studying serotonin because the compound’s molecular signaling pathways are highly conserved across living species, including humans.
Important Research Questions
“This research opens the door to many other avenues of research in humans,” said Schroeder, who is also a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences and looking for answers to important questions such as: “Are similar metabolites important in humans? What is the role of One manufacturing pathway versus the other? How important are the manufacturing pathways and metabolites to human behaviors, such as mental health and nutritional behaviours?
Indeed, researchers are currently exploring how novel serotonin derivatives affect behavior in C. elegans and whether similar serotonin metabolites exist in humans.