Endoplasmic reticulum stress is involved in restraint stress-induced hippocampal apoptosis and cognitive impairments in rats

Long-term exposure to stressful stimuli can reduce hippocampal volume and cause cognitive impairments, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) is considered an early or initial response of cells under stress and linked to neuronal death in various neurodegenerative diseases. The present study investigated the involvement of ERS in restraint stress (RS)-induced hippocampal apoptosis and cognitive impairments. Using the rat RS model for 21 consecutive days, we found that the hippocampal apoptotic rate was significantly up-regulated as compared with unstressed controls, and salubrinal (ERS inhibitor) pretreatment effectively reduced the increase. As the marker of ERS, the 78-kDa glucose-regulated protein (GRP78) and the target molecule of the unfolded protein response (UPR), the splice variant of X-box binding protein 1 (sXBP-1) were also markedly increased in RS rats. Furthermore, in the three possible signaling pathways of ERS-induced apoptosis, the protein and mRNA levels of C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) were significantly up-regulated, and caspase-12 was activated and cleaved, which suggested that these two pathways crucially contributed to hippocampal cell death. However, we found no changes in protein levels of phosphorylated JNK, implying that the JNK pathway was not the primary pathway involved in hippocampal apoptosis. It is more important that the cognitive impairments caused by RS were also effectively alleviated by salubrinal pretreatment. The present results suggested that ERS in hippocampus was excessively activated under stress, and amelioration of ERS could be a novel strategy to prevent and treat impaired cognitive function induced by RS.