Depression: The trail of gene therapy

Depression covers very different realities, with variable pain intensity and duration. If a large proportion responding positively to treatment, a small number of patients do not respond to antidepressants. Either because the drugs do not produce the desired effect on them or because they act only momentarily, and in some cases, even worsen symptoms. In these severe cases, various heavier treatments are sometimes proposed: electroconvulsive therapy, brain stimulation etc.

In this therapeutic context of poverty facing severe depression, scientists have studied the interest of gene therapy. Experimentally yet. Researchers at Cornell University and Presbyterian Hospital in New York are indeed published an article in the journal Science Translational Medicine which concluded that gene therapy could be a solution for major depression not responding to any chemical treatment. Researchers injected a gene that activates a protein called "p11" as part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. The restoration of this gene eliminated the depressive symptoms in laboratory mice (symptoms assessed by standardized protocols).

The researchers had the intuition that this protein activated p11 in the nucleus accumbens of the brain is fundamental to experience pleasure and a sense of satisfaction, absent in patients with depression. Post-mortem analysis showed that patients with major depression had abnormal rates of p11 protein. This is why Dr. Michael Kaplitt of Cornell University chose to insert the p11 gene to produce the protein in the nucleus accumbens using a virus as a vector.

He himself had successfully tested this technique for genetic treatment of patients with Parkinson's in a clinical trial (phase 1).

However, researchers do not know today with certainty whether the p11 protein is actually the protein of depression. This research is very interesting to better understand the mechanisms that are involved in depression.

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