Date of Award

4-6-2018

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Marlene Murray

Abstract

Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder portrayed with repeated episodes of mania and depression. Its current treatments often entail inefficacy and negative side effects. From previous clinical research, omega-3-fatty acids were suggested to be effective in the amelioration of bipolar disorder. Such an effect is hypothetically attributed to their ability to alter the level of myo-inositol, a molecule that valproate and lithium are known to deplete out. Thus, the goal of this study is to determine the effects of the omega-3 decosahexaenoic acid (DHA) on myo-inositol levels and the expression of the myo-inositol synthase gene INO1. Yeast cells were cultured with various concentrations of DHA and extracted after 18-24 hours. These cell extracts were enzymatically assayed for myo-inositol concentration and examined by RT-qPCR for gene expression. The results suggest that DHA increases intracellular myo-inositol and decreases the gene expression of INO1, as hypothesized. Thus, the results support the hypothesis that omega 3-fatty acids can ameliorate bipolar disorder by manipulating myo-inositol hypothesis that omega 3-fatty acids can ameliorate bipolar disorder by manipulating myo-inositol level.

Subject Area

Omega-3 Fatty Acids; Docosahexaenoic Acid; Inositol; Gene expression; Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/honors/191/

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