A safe lithium mimetic for bipolar disorder

Nisha Singh, Amy C. Halliday, Justyn M. Thomas, Olga V. Kuznetsova, Rhiannon Baldwin, Esther C. Y. Woon, Parvinder K. Aley, Ivi Antoniadou, Trevor Sharp, Sridhar R. Vasudevan () and Grant C. Churchill ()
Additional contact information
Nisha Singh: University of Oxford
Amy C. Halliday: University of Oxford
Justyn M. Thomas: University of Oxford
Olga V. Kuznetsova: University of Oxford
Rhiannon Baldwin: University of Oxford
Esther C. Y. Woon: University of Oxford
Parvinder K. Aley: University of Oxford
Ivi Antoniadou: University of Oxford
Trevor Sharp: University of Oxford
Sridhar R. Vasudevan: University of Oxford
Grant C. Churchill: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Lithium is the most effective mood stabilizer for the treatment of bipolar disorder, but it is toxic at only twice the therapeutic dosage and has many undesirable side effects. It is likely that a small molecule could be found with lithium-like efficacy but without toxicity through target-based drug discovery; however, therapeutic target of lithium remains equivocal. Inositol monophosphatase is a possible target but no bioavailable inhibitors exist. Here we report that the antioxidant ebselen inhibits inositol monophosphatase and induces lithium-like effects on mouse behaviour, which are reversed with inositol, consistent with a mechanism involving inhibition of inositol recycling. Ebselen is part of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Collection, a chemical library of bioavailable drugs considered clinically safe but without proven use. Therefore, ebselen represents a lithium mimetic with the potential both to validate inositol monophosphatase inhibition as a treatment for bipolar disorder and to serve as a treatment itself.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2320 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2320

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2320

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().