Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0848237 (acute stress)
 4,619 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Male Sprague-Dawley rats maintained under controlled lighting and temperature conditions were used in this experiment. Animals were exposed to acute cold (4 degrees C) and immobilization stress for one hour, exposed to cold stress for 7 days (chronic stress) or treated with corticosterone (2 mg/kg) 1 hr prior to sacrificing. Animals with their proper controls were sacrificed and the stomach, duodenum, ileum and colon were separated and assayed for choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activities. The data obtained indicated that exposure to acute stress resulted in significant decline in ChAT activity in all tissues studied. The administration of corticosterone resulted in significant decline in ChAT activity in all tissues studied except for the duodenum. Meanwhile, the exposure to chronic stress did not have any significant effect on ChAT activity. On the other hand, acute stress caused significant increase in AChE activity in all tissues studied except for the ileum and stomach. The duodenal AChE activity of stressed animals increased thirty-fold when compared to control. The administration of glucocorticoids significantly reduced AChE in all tissues studied, except for the duodenum and stomach where there was thirty-two-fold increase as compared to the control levels. The exposure to chronic stress also caused significant increase in AChE of all tissues studied, except for the colon. The results of this experiments indicate that the duodenal AChE is extremely sensitive to stress or glucocorticoids and that stress induced changes in the cholinergic enzymes of the gastrointestinal tract may be mediated by adrenal steroids.
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PMID:Effect of stress and glucocorticoids on the gastrointestinal cholinergic enzymes. 371 75

Transgenic rodents expressing Cre recombinase cell specifically are used for exploring mechanisms regulating behavior, including those mediated by cholinergic signaling. However, it was recently reported that transgenic mice overexpressing a bacterial artificial chromosome containing choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) gene, for synthesizing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, present with multiple vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) gene copies, resulting in altered cholinergic tone and accompanying behavioral abnormalities. Since ChAT::Cre+ rats, used increasingly for understanding the biological basis of CNS disorders, utilize the mouse ChAT promotor to control Cre recombinase expression, we assessed for similar genotypical and phenotypical differences in such rats compared to wild-type siblings. The rats were assessed for mouse VAChT copy number, VAChT protein expression levels and for sustained attention, response control and anxiety. Rats were also subjected to a contextual fear conditioning paradigm using an unconditional fear-inducing stimulus (electrical foot shocks), with blood samples taken at baseline, the fear acquisition phase and retention testing, for measuring blood plasma markers of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal gland (HPA)-axis activity. ChAT::Cre+ rats expressed multiple mouse VAChT gene copies, resulting in significantly higher VAChT protein expression, revealed anxiolytic behavior, hyperlocomotion and deficits in tasks requiring sustained attention. The HPA-axis was intact, with unaltered circulatory levels of acute stress-induced corticosterone, leptin and glucose. Our findings, therefore, reveal that in ChAT::Cre+ rats, VAChT overexpression associates with significant alterations of certain cognitive, motor and affective functions. Although highly useful as an experimental tool, it is essential to consider the potential effects of altered cholinergic transmission on baseline behavior in ChAT::Cre rats.
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PMID:Altered motor, anxiety-related and attentional task performance at baseline associate with multiple gene copies of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter and related protein overexpression in ChAT::Cre+ rats. 3150 25