Quantitative Proteomics Analysis of Susceptibility and Resilience to Stress in a Rat model of PTSD

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder and sometimes deadly consequence of exposure to severe psychological trauma. However, there has been little known about the definitive molecular changes involved in determining vulnerability to PTSD. In the current study, we used proteomics to quantify protein changes in the hippocampus of foot shocks rats. A total of 6151 proteins were quantified and 97 proteins were significantly differentially expressed. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis showed that oxidationreduction process and glutathione homeostasis may be the potential key progress of being vulnerable to PTSD. The Gene Ontology analysis revealed enriched GO terms in the protein groups of Susceptible group vs Control group rats for glutathione binding,oligopeptide binding,modified amino acid binding,and glutathione transferase activity for their molecular functions (MF) and in the process of cellular response to toxic substance,xenobiotic metabolic process, urea metabolic process, and response to drug for the biological process (BP).SIGNIFICANCE:In recent years, there has been a growing interest in mental illness associated with trauma exposure. We found that stress susceptibility was associated with increased expression of arginase 1 indicated as a potential treatment target. Our results also proposed that carbonic anhydrases 3 could be a biomarker for the development of PTSD. This research helps to explain the potential molecular mechanism in PTSD and supply a new method for ameliorating PTSD.