# Pharmacological Actions of Stress and Antidepressants

> **NIH NIH R01** · ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI · 2020 · $569,568

## Abstract

The objective of this R01 grant renewal is to characterize two novel transcriptional regulators,
not previously implicated in stress or depression—and nearly unstudied in any neural
phenomena—in mediating resilience to chronic stress via actions in the medial prefrontal cortex
(mPFC) and other limbic brain regions. Virtually all prior studies of transcriptional mechanisms
in stress action, including those supported by earlier editions of this grant, have taken a
candidate approach. This is in marked contrast to an unbiased approach of using “big data” to
deduce, in an open-ended manner, those factors that are most important in mediating specific
aspects of stress susceptibility vs. resilience. We utilize this more powerful approach by taking
advantage of large-scale RNA-seq datasets from mouse stress models and depressed humans
to identify those factors that appear to play particularly critical roles in stress responses. We
focus on cell type-specific actions of two of the most highly ranked transcriptional regulators
from our datasets: ZFP189 (a deduced zinc finger transcription factor) and linc00473 (a primate-
specific long non-coding RNA enriched in the cell nucleus). Zfp189 (ZNF189 in humans) is the
top-ranked pro-resilience hub gene deduced in our datasets, while linc00473 is bioinformatically
linked to ZFP189 in our human datasets and highly correlated with protein-coding genes that
display abnormal expression in human depression. Interestingly, both appear to be downstream
of the transcription factor, CREB. Based solely on these bioinformatics predictions, we have
generated robust preliminary data to validate the importance of each of these transcriptional
regulators in mouse stress models and now propose to better understand their actions. We will
characterize their role in mPFC in controlling behavioral responses to chronic stress as well as
map their target genes on a genome-wide basis, focusing on actions in pyramidal neurons
where the two factors predominate. Related work will study the effect of ZFP189 and linc00473
on the excitability of this neuronal cell type in brain slices and in vivo. Together, this work will
reveal new transcriptional mechanisms underlying behavioral resilience and inform our
understanding of depression pathophysiology.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9897611
- **Project number:** 5R01MH051399-29
- **Recipient organization:** ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI
- **Principal Investigator:** ERIC J. NESTLER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $569,568
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1994-09-30 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9897611

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9897611, Pharmacological Actions of Stress and Antidepressants (5R01MH051399-29). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9897611. Licensed CC0.

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