Studies on serum proteomics of psychological stressed rats

Objective To explore the changes in serum protein profiles in rats after psychological stress. Methods Twenty-four male Wistar rats were randomly divided into psychological stress group,control group and stressor group. Rats in stressor group received intermittent foot-shock. Instead of foot-shock,the rats in psychological stress group received the stimulating information from stressor group by watching,listening and smelling. Rats in control group were kept in individual cages and received no stimulation. Experiments were performed once every morning for two weeks. Serum samples of rats in both psychological stress group and control group were obtained and the changes in protein profiles were determined and statistically analyzed by Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight-Mass Spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) after the experiments. Results Variance analysis showed that the relative contents of proteins with M/Z values of 8870.18,6860.85,8625.13 and 11 413.91Da decreased significantly in rats of psychological stress group as compared with control group (P0.05). The expressions of the 4 proteins were down-regulated in the rats of psychological stress group. Conclusion Psychological stress may affect the serum protein profiles of serum of rats.