The picture visualizes the effects of depression and antidepressant through left and right color contrasts, yin and yang contrasts. Courtesy of the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhongxin Online Hai, January 28 (Reporter Zheng Yingying) Depression affects hundreds of millions of patients around the world, and the Shanghai research team has found another way to make hallucinogens "change from evil to righteousness" and help treat depression.
On January 28, Beijing time, Wang Sheng's research group at the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Cheng Jianjun research group of the iHuman Institute of ShanghaiTech University published a research result in the international academic journal Science, which completed the design of a new rapid antidepressant compound that was oriented to the structure of hallucinogens and their targets.
Wang Sheng, a researcher at the Center for Excellence in Molecular cell science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that the current treatment of depression is mainly psychological treatment, electric shock therapy and drug treatment. In terms of drug therapy, traditional antidepressants currently on the market are slow to act, often taking weeks or even months to take effect, and have no improvement effect on one-third of refractory depressions.
Researchers wonder: How can you find antidepressants that work quickly?
In recent years, a variety of hallucinogens have shown some potential in the treatment of depression. For example, Psilocybin, a class of natural hallucinogens extracted from "magic mushrooms", was awarded by the US FDA in 2019 as a breakthrough therapy for the treatment of major depressive disorder and drug-resistant depression. The results of the phase II clinical study show that Psilocybin can greatly improve the symptoms of depressed patients in one day, and the effect can last for more than three months. However, the hallucinogenic side effects of hallucinogens greatly limit their clinical research and application. Therefore, scientists around the world have been working to find and develop new antidepressants that are non-hallucinogenic and can work quickly.
Overview flow chart of the content of the dissertation article Courtesy of the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Psilocybin is metabolized in the human body to dephosphate psilocin. After the structural analysis of psilocybin dephosphate, the Shanghai research team designed and synthesized a series of compounds represented by IHCH-7086 and IHCH-7079. Wang Sheng introduced that the team found through a series of experiments done in mice that the hallucinogenic effect and therapeutic effect of hallucinogens can be separated; and found a new generation of antidepressant compounds without hallucinogenic effects and fast onset of action.
"From the first generation of 'Prozac' to the second generation of 'hallucinogenic mushrooms', we are wondering whether we can design more non-hallucinogenic, fast-acting antidepressant compounds later, and then push it to the clinic." He said.
The research results point the way for the development of a new generation of non-hallucinogenic antidepressants that act quickly. But the researchers point out that "compounds" are not the same as "drugs" and that a lot of experimental verification is needed to make them truly beneficial to patients.
It is reported that Cao Dongmei, a doctoral student in the research group of Wang Sheng of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yu Jing, an assistant researcher, Wang Huan, assistant researcher of the iHuman Research Institute of ShanghaiTech University, Professor Luo Zhipu of Soochow University, and Liu Xinyu, a doctoral student of the Research Group of Li Jinsong of the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are the co-first authors of the paper. Sheng Wang, a researcher at the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Jianjun Cheng, a researcher at the iHuman Institute of ShanghaiTech University, are co-corresponding authors of the paper. (End)