Evaluation of CXCL8 gene expression in patients with bipolar disorder

Introduction: Mood disorders include a wide range of disorders that are associated with mood impairment, lackof control over mood and mental experience of severe discomfort. Patients who have both periods of depressionand mania or only manic episodes suffer from bipolar disorder which usually manifests itself at the end ofadolescence or early adulthood. There have been studies on the relationship between neuroimmunology andbipolar disorder which showed the role of inflammatory cytokines in pathophysiology of this disorder. In somestudies, increased levels of pre-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6 have been reported inbipolar patients. It has also been shown that IL-6 and TNF-α receptor 1, as well as IL-1 receptor antagonist, areassociated with the severity of this disorder. CXCL8 has effects on the embryo neural and neuronal progenitorcells, and regulates migration of these cells during the process of neurogenesis and gliogenesis. In this study, weevaluated the gene expression of CXCL8 in patients with bipolar disorder and compared them with healthyindividuals.Methods: Sixty patients with confirmed bipolar disorder and 60 healthy individual were enrolled in this study.RNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples and then cDNA synthesized. Gene expression of CXCL8 wasmeasured employing SYBR Green Real time-RT-PCR.Results: Results of our study showed that the expression of CXCL8 gene in patients with bipolar disorder was51% higher than healthy individuals.Conclusion: This finding suggests that the expression of inflammatory chemokines such as CXCL8 might have arole in etiology of bipolar disorder.

Keywords:

Bipolar disorder , CXCL8