PSD-95 Is Essential for Hallucinogen and Atypical Antipsychotic Drug Actions at Serotonin Receptors

Here we report that PSD-95, a postsynaptic density scaffolding protein classically conceptualized as being essential for the regulation of ionotropic glutamatergic signaling at the post-synaptic membrane, plays an unanticipated and essential role in mediating the actions of hallucinogens and atypical antipsychotic drugs at 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C serotonergic G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). We show that PSD-95 is crucial for normal 5-HT2A and 5- HT2C expression in vivo, and that PSD-95 maintains normal receptor expression by promoting apical dendritic targeting and stabilizing receptor turnover in vivo. Significantly, 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C-mediated downstream signaling is impaired in PSD-95null mice, and the 5-HT2A-mediated head twitch response is abnormal. Furthermore, the ability of 5-HT2A inverse agonists to normalize behavioral changes induced by glutamate receptor antagonists is abolished in the absence of PSD-95 in vivo. These results demonstrate that PSD-95, in addition to the well known role it plays in scaffolding macromolecular glutamatergic signaling complexes, profoundly modulates metabotropic 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptor function