Genetics of bipolar disorder: insights into its complex architecture and biology from common and rare variants

The Potential of Selected Plants and Their Biologically Active Molecules in the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders

The incidence of anxiety and depression disorders is increasing worldwide. There is an increasing incidence of hard-to-treat depression with various aspects of origin. Almost 80% of people prefer to use natural remedies and supplements as their primary healthcare solution. Not surprisingly, around one-third of drugs were inspired by nature. Over the past three decades, the use of such remedies has increased significantly. Synthetic antidepressants may cause various negative side effects, whereas herbal medicines are favored because of their ability to relieve symptoms with minimal to no side effects and lower financial burden. This review provides an overview of herbs and biologically active compounds used to treat depression.

Mutational landscape of risk variants in comorbid depression and obesity: a next-generation sequencing approach

Major depression (MD) and obesity are complex genetic disorders that are frequently comorbid. However, the study of both diseases concurrently remains poorly addressed and therefore the underlying genetic mechanisms involved in this comorbidity remain largely unknown. Here we examine the contribution of common and rare variants to this comorbidity through a next-generation sequencing (NGS) approach. Specific genomic regions of interest in MD and obesity were sequenced in a group of 654 individuals from the PISMA-ep epidemiological study. We obtained variants across the entire frequency spectrum and assessed their association with comorbid MD and obesity, both at variant and gene levels. We identified 55 independent common variants and a burden of rare variants in 4 genes (PARK2, FGF21, HIST1H3D and RSRC1) associated with the comorbid phenotype. Follow-up analyses revealed significantly enriched gene-sets associated with biological processes and pathways involved in metabolic dysregulation, hormone signaling and cell cycle regulation. Our results suggest that, while risk variants specific to the comorbid phenotype have been identified, the genes functionally impacted by the risk variants share cell biological processes and signaling pathways with MD and obesity phenotypes separately. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study involving a targeted sequencing approach toward the study of the comorbid MD and obesity. The framework presented here allowed a deep characterization of the genetics of the co-occurring MD and obesity, revealing insights into the mutational and functional profile that underlies this comorbidity and contributing to a better understanding of the relationship between these two disabling disorders.

Associations of altered leukocyte DDR1 promoter methylation and childhood trauma with bipolar disorder and suicidal behavior in euthymic patients

Altered DNA methylation (DNAm) patterns of discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR1) have been found in the blood and brain of patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and the brain of patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Childhood trauma (CT) is associated with changes in DNAm that in turn are related to suicidal behavior (SB) in patients with several psychiatric disorders. Here, using MassARRAY® technology, we studied 128 patients diagnosed with BD in remission and 141 healthy controls (HCs) to compare leukocyte DDR1 promoter DNAm patterns between patients and HCs and between patients with and without SB. Additionally, we investigated whether CT was associated with DDR1 DNAm and mediated SB. We found hypermethylation at DDR1 cg19215110 and cg23953820 sites and hypomethylation at cg14279856 and cg03270204 sites in patients with BD compared to HCs. Logistic regression models showed that hypermethylation of DDR1 cg23953820 but not cg19215110 and CT were risk factors for BD, while cg14279856 and cg03270204 hypomethylation were protective factors. In patients, CT was a risk factor for SB, but DDR1 DNAm, although associated with CT, did not mediate the association of CT with SB. This is the first study demonstrating altered leukocyte DDR1 promoter DNAm in euthymic patients with BD. We conclude that altered DDR1 DNAm may be related to immune and inflammatory mechanisms and could be a potential blood biomarker for the diagnosis and stratification of psychiatric patients.

Study on exosomes for identifying bipolar disorder in early stage: A cross-sectional and validation study protocol

BACKGROUND

The difficulty is remained to accurately distinguish bipolar disorder (BD) from major depressive disorder (MDD) in early stage, with a delayed diagnosis for 5-10 years. BD patients are often treated with antidepressants systematically due to being diagnosed with MDD, affecting the disease course and clinical outcomes. The current study aims to explore the role of plasma exosomes as biomarker to distinguish BD from MDD in early stage.

METHODS

Two stages are included. The first stage is a cross-sectional study, comparing the concentrations of plasma exosome microRNA and related proteins among BD group, MDD group, and healthy controls (HC) group (n = 40 respectively), to identify target biomarkers preliminarily. The "Latent Class Analysis" and "Receiver Operating Characteristic" analysis will be performed to determine the optimal concentration range for each biomarker. The second stage is to validate target markers in subjects, coming from an ongoing study focusing on patients with a first depressive episode. All target biomarkers will be test in plasma samples reserved at the initial stage to detect whether the diagnosis indicated by biomarker level is consistent with the diagnosis by DSM-5. Furthermore, the correlation between specific biomarkers and the manic episode, suicidal ideation, and adverse reactions will also be observed.

DISCUSSION

Exosome-derived microRNA and related proteins have potential in serving as a good medium for exploring mental disorders because it can pass through the blood-brain barrier bidirectionally and convey a large amount of information stably. Improving the early diagnosis of BD would help implement appropriate intervention strategy as early as possible and significantly reduce the burden of disease.

Common changes in rat cortical gene expression after valproate or lithium treatment particularly affect pre- and post-synaptic pathways that regulate four neurotransmitters systems

OBJECTIVES

We have postulated that common changes in gene expression after treatment with different therapeutic classes of psychotropic drugs contribute to their common therapeutic mechanisms of action.

METHODS

To test this hypothesis, we measured levels of cortical coding and non-coding RNA using GeneChip® Rat Exon 1.0 ST Array after treatment with vehicle (chow only), chow containing 1.8 g lithium carbonate/kg (n = 10) or chow containing 12 g sodium valproate/kg (n = 10) for 28 days. Differences in levels of RNA were identified using JMP Genomics 13 and the Panther Gene Ontology Classification System was used to identify potential consequences of RNA.

RESULTS

Compared to vehicle treatment, levels of cortical RNA for 543 and 583 coding and non-coding RNAs were different after treatment with valproate and lithium, respectively. Moreover, levels of 323 coding and non-coding RNAs were altered in a highly correlated way by treatment with valproate and lithium, changes that would impact on cholinergic, glutamatergic, serotonergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission as well as on voltage gated ion channels.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study suggests that treating with mood stabilisers cause many common changes in levels of RNA which will impact on CNS function, particularly affecting post-synaptic muscarinic receptor functioning and the release of multiple neurotransmitters.

Bipolar Disorder

This review focuses on recent advances made towards understanding the neurobiology of bipolar disorder (BD), a chronic neuropsychiatric illness characterized by altered mood and energy states. The past few years have seen the completion of the largest genetic studies by far, which have emphasized the polygenic nature of BD as well as it's connection to other psychiatric illnesses. Furthermore, the use of inducible pluripotent stem cells has rapidly expanded. These studies support previous work that implicates dysregulation of neurodevelopment, mitochondria, and calcium homeostasis, while also allowing for investigation into the underlying mechanisms of individual responsivity to lithium. Sleep and circadian rhythms have also been heavily implicated in BD, from disruptions in activity patterns to molecular abnormalities.

Transcriptional profiles in the mouse amygdala after a cognitive judgment bias test largely depend on the genotype

Background: The amygdala is crucial for emotional cognitive processing. Affective or emotional states can bias cognitive processes, including attention, memory, and decision-making. This can result in optimistic or pessimistic behaviors that are partially driven by the activation of the amygdala. The resulting emotional cognitive bias is a common feature of anxiety and mood disorders, both of which are interactively influenced by genetic and environmental factors. It is also known that emotional cognitive biases can be influenced by environmental factors. However, little is known about the effects of genetics and/or gene-environment interactions on emotional cognitive biases. We investigated the effects of the genetic background and environmental enrichment on the transcriptional profiles of the mouse amygdala following a well-established cognitive bias test.

Methods: Twenty-four female C57BL/6J and B6D2F1N mice were housed either in standard (control) conditions or in an enriched environment. After appropriate training, the cognitive bias test was performed on 19 mice that satisfactorily completed the training scheme to assess their responses to ambiguous cues. This allowed us to calculate an “optimism score” for each mouse. Subsequently, we dissected the anterior and posterior portions of the amygdala to perform RNA-sequencing for differential expression and other statistical analyses.

Results: In general, we found only minor changes in the amygdala’s transcriptome associated with the levels of optimism in our mice. In contrast, we observed wide molecular effects of the genetic background in both housing environments. The C57BL/6J animals showed more transcriptional changes in response to enriched environments than the B6D2F1N mice. We also generally found more dysregulated genes in the posterior than in the anterior portion of the amygdala. Gene set overrepresentation analyses consistently implicated cellular metabolic responses and immune processes in the differences observed between mouse strains, while processes favoring neurogenesis and neurotransmission were implicated in the responses to environmental enrichment. In a correlation analysis, lipid metabolism in the anterior amygdala was suggested to influence the levels of optimism.

Conclusions: Our observations underscore the importance of selecting appropriate animal models when performing molecular studies of affective conditions or emotional states, and suggest an important role of immune and stress responses in the genetic component of emotion regulation.