New agent blocks stress response

Stress isn’t merely an oppressive feeling we experience when we’re overwhelmed; it’s the body’s natural reaction to acute or persistent strain. This stress response is what enables us to quickly adapt to danger or a shift in conditions. But if this response – which is essential for survival – gets out of control and becomes a permanent state, it can trigger a wide range of negative effects: obesity, cardiovascular diseases, increased susceptibility to infection, memory disorders and depression are all typical effects of chronic stress.

Up to now, medical treatment has focused almost entirely on the symptoms of these secondary conditions. “The only approved drug that directly intervenes in the regulation of stress responses has a host of unwanted side effects. It was actually developed as an abortifacient and its impact on stress is merely a side effect,” explains Katharina Gapp, head of the Epigenetics and Neuroendocrinology group at the Institute for Neuroscience at ETH Zurich.

In collaboration with three other ETH research groups, Gapp has now developed a promising new agent that pinpoints and eliminates the control centre of the stress response – what’s called the glucocorticoid receptor – in cell cultures and animal models. In the future, this could enable stress- related conditions such as chronic depression to be treated much more specifically and with fewer side effects.
 

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