Abstract
Parvalbumin interneurons (PVIs) are affected in many psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia (SCZ), however the mechanism remains unclear. FXR1, a high confident risk gene for SCZ, is indispensable but its role in the brain is largely unknown. We show that deleting FXR1 from PVIs of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) leads to reduced PVI excitability, impaired mPFC gamma oscillation, and SCZ-like behaviors. PVI-specific translational profiling reveals that FXR1 regulates the expression of Cacna1h/Cav3.2 a T-type calcium channel implicated in autism and epilepsy. Inhibition of Cav3.2 in PVIs of mPFC phenocopies whereas elevation of Cav3.2 in PVIs of mPFC rescues behavioral deficits resulted from FXR1 deficiency. Stimulation of PVIs using a gamma oscillation-enhancing light flicker rescues behavioral abnormalities caused by FXR1 deficiency in PVIs. This work unveils the function of a newly identified SCZ risk gene in SCZ-relevant neurons and identifies a therapeutic target and a potential noninvasive treatment for psychiatric disorders.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Y. Xing, S. Minemyer, R. Risgaard, R. Mishra, A. Stanko, P. Chugh, S. Pham, Y. Zhao, Y. Sun for technical assistance, V. Bakshi, B. Baldo and J. Panksepp for helping with PPI tests, S. Liu for helping with bioinformatics, J. Pinnow, M. Perez, M. Eastwood, D. Bolling, R. Emerson, H. Mitchell and K. Knobel at the Waisman IDD Model Core, S. Splinter-BonDurant and the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center for providing next generation sequencing services. This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01MH118827, R01NS105200, and R01MH116582 to XZ, R01HD064743 to QC, R01NS064025, R01AG067025, and U01MH116492 to DW, U54HD090256 to the Waisman Center; 5R01NS094550 and P20GM121310 to QS). Brain Research Foundation, UW Vilas (Mid-Career Award), Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Jenni and Kyle Professorship (to XZ), and FRAXA Postdoctoral fellowship (to MS).
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XZ conceived the concept and designed experiments. MS designed and performed experiments, collected data, and analyzed data. MS and XZ wrote the manuscript. SK and CS performed bioinformatics analysis. MES, SK, TK. KAS and JL collected data. QD and QC performed electrophysiological analyses. CZ and QS performed iEEG recordings and analysis. DW performed gene expression analysis using PsychENCODE data.
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Shen, M., Guo, Y., Dong, Q. et al. FXR1 regulation of parvalbumin interneurons in the prefrontal cortex is critical for schizophrenia-like behaviors. Mol Psychiatry 26, 6845–6867 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01096-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01096-z
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