POSTER

Wengenroth¹, J. Swatton¹, N. Karp², H.S. Lilley²,

1Department of

Neurobiology, Babraham Institute, Cambridge CB2 4AT, UK; ²Department

of Biochemistry, Cambridge Centre for Proteomics, University of Cambridge,

Cambridge, CB2 1QW, UK; ³Department of Psychiatry, University of

Bipolar

disorder, also known as manic depression, is a disruptive mental health problem

involving episodes of extreme mood swings.  So far, the underlying

neuropathology has essentially been derived from drug effects.  Although several

neurotransmitter systems have been implicated to play a role in the etiology,

the full understanding of the pathophysiology of this affective disorder remains

In our

study we compared the protein expression profile of 10 prefrontal cortex samples

(grey and white matter respectively) from patients with bipolar disorder to 10

matched control samples.  After subjecting the proteins to 2D-fluorescence

differential gel electrophoresis (2D DIGE) we quantified the proteins using

Biological Variation Analysis software (Amersham) and sequenced the peptides by

Interestingly, we discovered a largely increased protein expression profile.  In

particular proteins involved in energy metabolism, the cytoskeleton, protein

trafficking and neurodevelopment are generally over-expressed in bipolar

disorder.  In comparison to the results of an analogous study on schizophrenia,

findings from this study highlight the similarities as well as the distinct

pathways underlying this disease.  Those results are likely to give a further