Citation

Bani-Fatemi A, Jeremian R, Wang KZ, Silveira J, Zai C, Kolla NJ, Graff A, Gerretsen P, Strauss J, De Luca V. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2018; 104: 192-197.

Affiliation

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: Vincenzo.deluca@camh.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2018.07.011

PMID

30103066

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a major clinical problem and represents a major risk factor for suicide. The molecular mechanisms of suicidal behavior in psychosis remain poorly investigated, although it has been hypothesized that epigenetic processes are involved in the etiology of both psychosis and suicidality. In this study, epigenome-wide patterns of methylation were measured in schizophrenia suicide attempters (n = 54) and schizophrenia non-suicide attempters (n = 69) using DNA extracted from white blood cells (WBC). Analyses focused on identifying differentially methylated CpG sites and gene regions between the attempters and non-attempters. We identified the CpG site cg19647197 within the CCDC53 gene, which is characterized by hypomethylation of WBC in the attempters compared to the non-attempters. Our results suggest that there is variation in DNA methylation associated with suicide attempt that may offer novel highlights into the molecular mechanisms linked to suicide attempt associated with schizophrenia.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Bisulfite conversion; Epigenetics; Methylation; Schizophrenia; Suicide