Noncanonical role of astrocytic mitochondrial Cx43: suppressing IDH3α to sustain glycolytic homeostasis against depression
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Depression remains a pervasive global health challenge, compounded by limited therapeutic efficacy that is partly attributed to incompletely understood metabolic underpinnings. In this study, we reveal a noncanonical mitochondrial function of astrocytic connexin 43 (Cx43) whereby it directly inhibits isocitrate dehydrogenase 3α (IDH3α), thereby sustaining glycolytic metabolism and lactate production essential for neuronal excitability. Astrocyte-specific deletion of Cx43 in the prelimbic cortex (PrL) recapitulates hallmark depressive phenotypes, characterized by reduced lactate synthesis, diminished neuronal excitability, and depressive-like behaviors. Loss of Cx43 enhances IDH3α activity, prompting a metabolic reprogramming from aerobic glycolysis toward oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) driven by glutamine-fueled anaplerosis, resulting in suppressed glucose uptake and decreased lactate output. This metabolic impairment restricts astrocytic lactate supply, depriving neurons of a critical energetic substrate. Importantly, this reprogramming occurs independently of gap junction intercellular communication, as demonstrated using a channel function-deficient dominant-negative Cx43 mutant. Restoration of mitochondrial Cx43 in astrocytes rescues neuronal excitability and ameliorates depressive-like phenotypes. Collectively, our findings identify mitochondrial Cx43 as a vital regulator of IDH3α activity, essential for astrocyte-neuron metabolic coupling, and highlight a promising target for therapeutic intervention in depression.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".