Neurocircuit inhibition of hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neurons controlling hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) activity prominently involves GABAergic cell groups of the hypothalamus and basal forebrain. In the present study, stress responsiveness of GABAergic regions implicated in HPA inhibition was assessed by in situ hybridization, using probes recognizing the GABA-synt...

Our previous study demonstrated that persistent pain can epigenetically suppress the transcription of Gad2 [encoding glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD65)] and consequently impair the inhibitory function of GABAergic synapses in central pain-modulating neurons. This contributes to the development of persistent pain sensitization. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors increased GAD65 activity c...

Glutamic acid decarboxylase is responsible for synthesizing GABA, the major inhibitory neurotransmitter, and exists in two isoforms--GAD65 and GAD67. The enzyme is cleaved under excitotoxic conditions, but the mechanisms involved and the functional consequences are not fully elucidated. We found that excitotoxic stimulation of cultured hippocampal neurons with glutamate leads to a time-dependen...

Autoimmune disease and/or autoantibodies have been reported in mood disorder patients. We screened for autoantibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65), thyroid peroxidase (TPO), gastric H+/K+ ATPase (ATP4B), and Ro52 in a psychiatric patient cohort. A 24-year-old woman with major depressive disorder (MDD) with reduced psychomotor activity was identified with unusually high serum GAD65 and...

Mutations in the CLN3 gene are responsible for the neurodegenerative disorder Batten disease; however, the molecular basis of this disease remains unknown. In studying a mouse model for Batten disease, we report the presence of an autoantibody to glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65) in cln3-knockout mice serum that associates with brain tissue but is not present in sera or brain of normal mice. ...

The characteristics of humoral immunity have been proposed to reflect the bias between two T helper (Th) lymphocyte subsets: Th1 cells, which activate cell-mediated immunity, and Th2 cells, which mediate humoral immunity. The present study aimed to characterize the humoral immunity to betacell autoantigens insulin and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65) in preclinical and clinical type 1 diabet...

Soluble HLA-DR401 or -DR404 tetramers containing a peptide corresponding to an immunodominant epitope from human GAD65 were used to analyze peripheral blood T-cells of newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic patients and at-risk subjects. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were expanded on antigen-presenting cells presenting GAD65 peptide and subsequently activated with specific plate-bound class II-pe...

Antibodies to glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD-ab) associate to different neurological syndromes. It is unknown if the diversity in syndrome association represents epitopes in different immunodominant domains or co-existence of antibodies to other proteins of the inhibitory synapsis. We examined the serum and CSF of 106 patients with anti-GAD related syndromes (39 cerebellar ataxia, 32 stiff-pe...