Downregulation of the psychiatric susceptibility gene Cacna1c promotes mitochondrial resilience to oxidative stress in neuronal cells

Affective disorders such as major depression and bipolar disorder are among the most prevalent forms of mental illness and their etiologies involve complex interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors. Over the past ten years, several genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified CACNA1C as one of the strongest genetic risk factors for the development of affective disorders. However, its role in disease pathogenesis is still largely unknown. Vulnerability to affective disorders also involves diverse environmental risk factors such as perinatal insults, childhood maltreatment, and other adverse pathophysiological or psychosocial life events. At the cellular level, such environmental influences may activate oxidative stress pathways, thereby altering neuronal plasticity and function. Mitochondria are the key organelles of energy metabolism and, further, highly important for the adaptation to oxidative stress. Accordingly, multiple lines of evidence including post-mortem brain and neuro-imaging studies suggest that psychiatric disorders are accompanied by mitochondrial dysfunction. In this study, we investigated the effects of Cacna1c downregulation in combination with glutamate-induced oxidative stress on mitochondrial function, Ca(2+) homeostasis, and cell viability in mouse hippocampal HT22 cells. We found that the siRNA-mediated knockdown of Cacna1c preserved mitochondrial morphology, mitochondrial membrane potential, and ATP levels after glutamate treatment. Further, Cacna1c silencing inhibited excessive mitochondrial reactive oxygen species formation and calcium influx, and protected the HT22 cells from oxidative cell death. Overall, our findings suggest that the GWAS-confirmed psychiatric risk gene CACNA1C plays a major role in oxidative stress pathways with particular impact on mitochondrial integrity and function.