酗酒和烟瘾可能是相同的基因在作怪

【字体: 时间:2006年03月21日 来源:生物通

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生物通报道:据美国健康研究院的国家酒精滥用和酗酒研究所支持的一项新研究显示,对酒精和尼古丁滥用的易感性可能收到相同的遗传因子的影响。

在这项研究中,研究人员利用两种在遗传上有差别的大鼠(一种是先天能喝酒的大鼠株,另外一种是不擅长饮酒的大鼠株)进行研究。先天“海量”的大鼠记做“P”大鼠;不擅喝酒的大鼠记做“NP”大鼠。他们给这些大鼠注射尼古丁后,发现P大鼠能摄入的尼古丁量是NP大鼠的两倍。这些结果在近期的Journal of Neuroscience杂志上公布。

研究人员还发现P大鼠比NP大鼠更容易复发尼古丁瘾,而且在遗传上更倾向于喜欢酒精和尼古丁的P大鼠并没有表现出对其他药物滥用的易发。(生物通记者杨遥)

Same Genes May Underlie Alcohol and Nicotine Co-Abuse

 Vulnerability to both alcohol and nicotine abuse may be influenced by the same genetic factor, according to a recent study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In the study, two genetically distinct kinds of rat - one an innately heavy-drinking strain bred to prefer alcohol ("P" rats), the other strain bred to not prefer alcohol ("NP" rats) -- learned to give themselves nicotine injections by pressing a lever. Researchers found that P rats took more than twice as much nicotine as NP rats. Their findings were reported recently in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"Our findings suggest that the genetic factor underlying the high alcohol consumption seen in P rats may also contribute to their affinity for nicotine," said lead author A.D. Lê, Ph.D., a NIAAA-supported researcher at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and University of Toronto.

Researchers have known for some time that people who smoke are more likely to drink alcohol than non-smokers. Similarly, smoking is three times more common in people with alcoholism than in the general population. Since previous studies have also determined that genetics plays an important role in both alcohol and nicotine addictions, researchers have hypothesized that the same gene or genes may influence the co-abuse of these substances.

Investigating this hypothesis in human studies is stymied by the possibility that alcohol use leads to nicotine use, and vice versa. However, in the current study, researchers showed that the P rats' affinity for nicotine could be demonstrated before the animals were ever exposed to alcohol.

P rats were also found to be more vulnerable to nicotine relapse than NP rats. Researchers withheld nicotine from the rats until their lever pressing occurred infrequently. Then, both P and NP rats were given a single nicotine injection. P rats, but not NP rats, resumed pressing the lever previously associated with nicotine infusions.

The researchers also showed that the P rats' apparent genetic vulnerability to alcohol and nicotine does not appear to extend to other drugs of abuse. When P and NP rats learned to press a lever to receive cocaine, each group took about the same amount of that drug. The authors note that the lack of a difference in cocaine self-administration indicates that the difference between P and NP rats in nicotine self-administration is not due to a general "reward deficit" in NP rats.

"Selectively-bred P rats have been a reliable and useful animal model for studying diverse behavioral and physiological characteristics of alcohol abuse," notes NIAAA Director and study co-author Ting-Kai Li, M.D. "These findings suggest that they may be as useful for studying nicotine addiction. And by expanding our knowledge of the genetic underpinnings of alcohol and nicotine co-morbidity these findings will inform our efforts to address those important public health issues."

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