ArticleTranslational psychiatry2019
Minocycline alters behavior, microglia and the gut microbiome in a trait-anxiety-dependent manner.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 74 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
74 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 151 citations in OpenAlex.
- Tetracycline use in treating osteoarthritis: a systematic review.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Repurposing antimicrobial agents for neuroprotection: Mechanisms, clinical potential, and challenges.Neuroprotection (Chichester, England) · 2026Review
- Targeting Pain and Depression in Alzheimer's Disease: Translational Insights and Emerging Treatments.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Compromised hepatic bilirubin clearance drives depressive symptoms via regulating microglial engulfment of dendritic spines.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Tryptophan metabolism: a critical bridge linking gut microbiota to depression.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Minocycline Ameliorates Cognitive Impairments Without Modulating Microglial Reactivity in Sporadic Hypercholesterolemia: A Sex-Specific Analysis in Mice.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- Microbiota in interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome: evidence and opportunities.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2025Article
- Quercetin ameliorates chronic restraint stress- and LPS-induced anxiety-like behaviors by modulating neuroinflammation in the lateral hypothalamus.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Non-invasive light flickering reinstates visual plasticity in adult mice via lipocalin 2.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Sensory neurostimulation promotes stress resilience with frequency-specificity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Microglia Sing the Prelude of Neuroinflammation-Associated Depression.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
- The central role of microglia in major depressive disorder and its potential as a therapeutic target.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- The Gut Microbiota-anxiety Connection: Evidence, Mechanisms, and Therapeutic Strategies.Current medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- The microbiota-gut-brain axis in depression: unraveling the relationships and therapeutic opportunities.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Ultrastructural features of psychological stress resilience in the brain: a microglial perspective.Open biology · 2024Review
- Prenatal Environmental Antibiotic Exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorder Symptoms in Children at 3 Years of Age: Findings from the Ma'anshan Birth Cohort Study.Environment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
- Brain stars take the lead during critical periods of early postnatal brain development: relevance of astrocytes in health and mental disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Apocynin Prevents Cigarette Smoke-Induced Anxiety-Like Behavior and Preserves Microglial Profiles in Male Mice.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Minocycline Abrogates Individual Differences in Nerve Injury-Evoked Affective Disturbances in Male Rats and Prevents Associated Supraspinal Neuroinflammation.Journal of neuroimmune pharmacology : the official journal of the Society on NeuroImmune Pharmacology · 2024Article
14 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Major depressive disorder is the main cause of disability worldwide with imperfect treatment options. However, novel therapeutic approaches are currently discussed, from augmentation strategies to novel treatments targeting the immune system or the microbiome-gut-brain axis. Therefore, we examined the potential beneficial effects of minocycline, a tetracycline antibiotic with pleiotropic, immunomodulatory action, alone or as augmentation of escitalopram on behavior, prefrontal microglial density, and the gut microbiome in rats selectively bred for high anxiety-like behavior (HAB). We show that concomitant with their high innate anxiety and depression, HABs have lower microglial numbers in the infralimbic and prelimbic prefrontal cortex and an altered gut microbiota composition compared with controls. Three weeks of minocycline treatment alleviated the depressive-like phenotype, further reduced microglial density, exclusively in male HAB rats, and reduced plasma concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, coadministration of escitalopram, which had no effect alone, prevented these minocycline-induced effects. Moreover, minocycline led to a robust shift in cecal microbial composition in both HABs and rats non-selected for anxiety-like behavior. Minocycline markedly increased relative abundance of Lachnospiraceae and Clostridiales Family XIII, families known for their butyrate production, with a corresponding increase and positive correlation in plasma 3-OH-butyrate levels in a trait-dependent manner. Thus, our data suggest that the antidepressant effect of minocycline is sex- and trait-dependent, associated with a reduced microglial number in the prefrontal cortex, and with changes in microbial composition and their metabolites. These results further support the microbiome-gut-brain axis as potential target in the treatment of depression.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.