A team of Montréal researchers at the IRCM led by Dr. Nabil G. Seidah, in collaboration with Dr.William C. Wetsel’s team at Duke University in the United States, discovered that the protein PC7 plays a critical role in the brain by affecting certain types of cognitive performance such as anxiety, learning and emotional memory. Their results, recently published in the scientific journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Nature, could have a significant impact on regulating behaviour related to anxiety disorders and trauma. The scientists found that PC7, the seventh member of the proprotein convertase family responsible for converting inactive proteins into their active states, plays a critical role in specific areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala, which are important for memory and emotional reactions and are involved in anxiety responses. The results of various behavioural tests in mice lacking PC7 revealed that while spatial memory remained intact, episodic and emotional memories were severely impaired. Episodic memory, the recollection of past events or experiences, can trigger a change in behaviour as a result of an event. “Collectively, these findings indicate that deletion of PC7 in mice could have substantial effects on certain types of cognitive performance,” concludes Dr. Seidah. “We believe that a drug targeting PC7 could increase levels of dopamine and BDNF in the brain, thereby normalizing behaviour. This discovery could be very significant for a number of conditions related to anxiety and trauma, such as bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder.”
