MATERIALS AND METHODS

YY1AP-related protein (YARP) shares a structurally ho-mologous YY1-binding domain with YY1-associated protein (YY1AP), which is a co-activator of YY1.1—3) To date, there are four YY1AP-homolog proteins that have a YY1AP-ho-mology domain—three YARP variants (YARP, YARP2, and YARP3) have been identified in human.1) The YARP gene is located next to YY1AP gene on chromosome 1 at position 1q22, and can generate three YARP variants via the alterna-tive use of exsons. YARP gene is highly expressed in the human brain, whereas YY1AP is ubiquitously expressed in human tissues. In human neuroblastoma cells (SK-N-SH), YARP mRNA expression is increased upon dibutyryl cAMP treatment, suggesting that YARP gene induction in differenti-ated SK-N-SH cells possibly implies a role in basic cellular processes such as cell-cycle control. In the case of rat tissue, YARP2, YARP3, and YY1AP mRNA are not detected by Northern blots, raising the possi-bility that YARP is a major splice variant of YARPs in rat.2) In situ hybridization showed that the YARP gene is expressed in neurons but not in glial cells within rat brain. In the devel-oping rat brain, the YARP gene is highly expressed during the latter part of embryonic development. In adult rat brain, YARP mRNA is expressed in subgranular zone (SGZ) and subventricular zone (SVZ); however, it is still unclear whether YARP mRNA is related to adult neurogenesis. Thus, the present study examined whether YARP mRNA expres-sion is regulated during adult neurogenesis. We used an elec-troconvulsive shock (ECS)-treated model because ECS pro-duces a larger increase in neurogenesis in the rat hippocam-pus than any other antidepressant intervention.4) And results of ECS-treated model were compared with those of kainic acid treated model (as other convulsions induction model), to reveal whether results of ECS treated model simply depend on convulsions or not