Abstract
Suicidal behavior has been associated with a deficient serotonin neurotransmission which is likely a consequence of individual genetic architecture, exposure to environmental factors and interactions of those factors. We examined whether the interaction of child abuse, TPH2 (tryptophan hydroxylase 2) variant rs4290270, affecting alternative splicing and editing of TPH2 pre-mRNAs, and ADARB1 (adenosine deaminase acting on RNA B1) variants rs4819035 and rs9983925 may influence the risk for suicide attempt in psychiatric patients. TPH2 rs4290270 was genotyped in 165 suicide attempters and 188 suicide non-attempters diagnosed with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Genotyping data for ADARB1 variants were taken over from our previous study. Child abuse before the age of 18 years was assessed using the Early Trauma Inventory-Self Report. Generalized linear models and backward selection were applied to identify the main and interacting effects of environmental and genetic factors, including psychiatric diagnoses, patients’ gender and age as covariates. Childhood general traumas were independently associated with suicide attempt. Two-way interaction between TPH2 rs4290270 and general traumas revealed that TT homozygotes with a history of general traumas had an increased risk for suicide attempt. Three-way interaction of general traumas, TPH2 rs4290270 and ADARB1 rs4819035 indicated that the highest predisposition to suicide attempt was observed in individuals who experienced general traumas and were TT homozygote for rs4290270 and TT homozygote for rs4819035. Our findings suggest that the risk for suicide attempt in psychiatric patients exposed to an adverse childhood environment may depend on TPH2 and ADARB1 variants.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abumaria N, Ribic A, Anacker C, Fuchs E, Flügge G (2008) Stress upregulates TPH1 but not TPH2 mRNA in the rat dorsal raphe nucleus: identification of two TPH2 mRNA splice variants. Cell Mol Neurobiol 28:331–342
American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn. American Psychiatric Publishing, Washington
Antypa N, Serretti A, Rujescu D (2013) Serotonergic genes and suicide: a systematic review. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 23:1125–1142
Bach-Mizrachi H, Underwood MD, Kassir SA, Bakalian MJ, Sibille E, Tamir H, Mann JJ, Arango V (2006) Neuronal tryptophan hydroxylase mRNA expression in the human dorsal and median raphe nuclei: major depression and suicide. Neuropsychopharmacology 31:814–824
Bach-Mizrachi H, Underwood MD, Tin A, Ellis SP, Mann JJ, Arango V (2008) Elevated expression of tryptophan hydroxylase-2 mRNA at the neuronal level in the dorsal and median raphe nuclei of depressed suicides. Mol Psychiatry 13:507–513
Beautrais AL, Joyce PR, Mulder RT, Fergusson DM, Deavoll BJ, Nightingale SK (1996) Prevalence and comorbidity of mental disorders in persons making serious suicide attempts: a case-control study. Am J Psychiatry 153:1009–1014
Boldrini M, Underwood MD, Mann JJ, Arango V (2005) More tryptophan hydroxylase in the brainstem dorsal raphe nucleus in depressed suicides. Brain Res 1041:19–28
Booij L, Wang D, Lévesque ML, Tremblay RE, Szyf M (2013) Looking beyond the DNA sequence: the relevance of DNA methylation processes for the stress-diathesis model of depression. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 368:20120251
Bortolato M, Pivac N, Muck Seler D, Nikolac Perkovic M, Pessia M, Di Giovanni G (2013) The role of the serotonergic system at the interface of aggression and suicide. Neuroscience 236:160–185
Bostwick JM, Pankratz VS (2000) Affective disorders and suicide risk: a reexamination. Am J Psychiatry 157:1925–1932
Bremner JD, Bolus R, Mayer EA (2007) Psychometric properties of the early trauma inventory–self report. J Nerv Ment Dis 195:211–218
Brezo J, Paris J, Vitaro F, Hébert M, Tremblay RE, Turecki G (2008) Predicting suicide attempts in young adults with histories of childhood abuse. Br J Psychiatry 193:134–139
Brodsky BS, Stanley B (2008) Adverse childhood experiences and suicidal behavior. Psychiatr Clin North Am 31:223–235
Burns CM, Chu H, Rueter SM, Hutchinson LK, Canton H, Sanders-Bush E, Emeson RB (1997) Regulation of serotonin-2C receptor G-protein coupling by RNA editing. Nature 387:303–308
Calcagno V (2013) glmulti: Model selection and multimodel inference made easy. R package version 1.0.7. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/glmulti/glmulti.pdf
Dracheva S, Patel N, Woo DA, Marcus SM, Siever LJ, Haroutunian V (2008) Increased serotonin 2C receptor mRNA editing: a possible risk factor for suicide. Mol Psychiatry 13:1001–1010
First MB, Spitzer RL, Gibbon M, Williams JBW (1996) Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders, Clinician Version (SCID-CV). American Psychiatric Press Inc, Washington
Gardner KL, Hale MW, Oldfield S, Lightman SL, Plotsky PM, Lowry CA (2009) Adverse experience during early life and adulthood interact to elevate tph2 mRNA expression in serotonergic neurons within the dorsal raphe nucleus. Neuroscience 163:991–1001
González JR, Armengol L, Guinó E, Solé X, Moreno V (2014) SNPassoc: SNPs-based whole genome association studies. R package version 1.9-2. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/SNPassoc/SNPassoc.pdf
Grohmann M, Hammer P, Walther M, Paulmann N, Büttner A, Eisenmenger W, Baghai TC, Schüle C, Rupprecht R, Bader M, Bondy B, Zill P, Priller J, Walther DJ (2010) Alternative splicing and extensive RNA editing of human TPH2 transcripts. PLoS One 5:e8956
Haghighi F, Bach-Mizrachi H, Huang YY, Arango V, Shi S, Dwork AJ, Rosoklija G, Sheng HT, Morozova I, Ju J, Russo JJ, Mann JJ (2008) Genetic architecture of the human tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene: existence of neural isoforms and relevance for major depression. Mol Psychiatry 13:813–820
Hale MW, Shekhar A, Lowry CA (2011) Development by environment interactions controlling tryptophan hydroxylase expression. J Chem Neuroanat 41:219–226
Hawton K, van Heeringen K (2009) Suicide. Lancet 373:1372–1381
Hosmer DW, Lemeshow S (2000) Applied logistic regression. Wiley, New York
Karanović J, Šviković S, Pantović M, Durica S, Brajušković G, Damjanović A, Jovanović V, Ivković M, Romac S, Savić Pavićević D (2015) Joint effect of ADARB1 gene, HTR2C gene and stressful life events on suicide attempt risk in patients with major psychiatric disorders. World J Biol Psychiatry 16:261–271
Keller MC (2014) Gene × environment interaction studies have not properly controlled for potential confounders: the problem and the (simple) solution. Biol Psychiatry 75:18–24
Lele SR, Keim JL, Solymos P (2015) ResourceSelection: resource selection (Probability) functions for use-availability data. R package version 0.2-5. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ResourceSelection/ResourceSelection.pdf
Lenth RV, Hervé M (2015) lsmeans: least-squares means. R package version 2.19
Lim JE, Pinsonneault J, Sadee W, Saffen D (2007) Tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2) haplotypes predict levels of TPH2 mRNA expression in human pons. Mol Psychiatry 12:491–501
López-Narváez ML, Tovilla-Zárate CA, González-Castro TB, Juárez-Rojop I, Pool-García S, Genis A, Ble-Castillo JL, Fresán A (2015) Association analysis of TPH-1 and TPH-2 genes with suicidal behavior in patients with attempted suicide in Mexican population. Compr Psychiatry 61:72–77
Lucki I (1998) The spectrum of behaviors influenced by serotonin. Biol Psychiatry 44:151–162
Lyddon R, Dwork AJ, Keddache M, Siever LJ, Dracheva S (2013) Serotonin 2c receptor RNA editing in major depression and suicide. World J Biol Psychiatry 14:590–601
Mandelli L, Serretti A (2013) Gene environment interaction studies in depression and suicidal behavior: an update. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 37:2375–2397
Mann JJ (2003) Neurobiology of suicidal behaviour. Nat Rev Neurosci 4:819–828
Mann JJ, Currier D, Murphy L, Huang YY, Galfalvy H, Brent D, Greenhill L, Oquendo M (2008) No association between a TPH2 promoter polymorphism and mood disorders or monoamine turnover. J Affect Disord 106:117–121
Mehler MF, Mattick JS (2007) Noncoding RNAs and RNA editing in brain development, functional diversification, and neurological disease. Physiol Rev 87:799–823
Murphy TM, Ryan M, Foster T, Kelly C, McClelland R, O’Grady J, Corcoran E, Brady J, Reilly M, Jeffers A, Brown K, Maher A, Bannan N, Casement A, Lynch D, Bolger S, Tewari P, Buckley A, Quinlivan L, Daly L, Kelleher C, Malone KM (2011) Risk and protective genetic variants in suicidal behaviour: association with SLC1A2, SLC1A3, 5-HTR1B & NTRK2 polymorphisms. Behav Brain Funct 7:22
Nishikura K (2010) Functions and regulation of RNA editing by ADAR deaminases. Annu Rev Biochem 79:321–349
Schadt EE, Molony C, Chudin E, Hao K, Yang X, Lum PY, Kasarskis A, Zhang B, Wang S, Suver C, Zhu J, Millstein J, Sieberts S, Lamb J, GuhaThakurta D, Derry J, Storey JD, Avila-Campillo I, Kruger MJ, Johnson JM, Rohl CA, van Nas A, Mehrabian M, Drake TA, Lusis AJ, Smith RC, Guengerich FP, Strom SC, Schuetz E, Rushmore TH, Ulrich R (2008) Mapping the genetic architecture of gene expression in human liver. PLoS Biol 6:e107
Schwartz S (2006) Modern epidemiology approaches to interaction: application to the study of genetic interactions. In: Hernandez LM, Blazer DG (eds) Genes, behavior, and the social environment: moving beyond the nature/nurture debate. National Academic Press, National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, Washington, pp 310–354
Silberberg G, Lundin D, Navon R, Öhman M (2012) Deregulation of the A-to-I RNA editing mechanism in psychiatric disorders. Hum Mol Genet 21:311–321
Simmons M, Meador-Woodruff JH, Sodhi MS (2010) Increased cortical expression of an RNA editing enzyme occurs in major depressive suicide victims. Neuroreport 21:993–997
R Core Team (2015) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/. Accessed 10 Jan 2015
Turecki G, Ernst C, Jollant F, Labonté B, Mechawar N (2012) The neurodevelopmental origins of suicidal behavior. Trends Neurosci 35:14–23
Underwood MD, Khaibulina AA, Ellis SP, Moran A, Rice PM, Mann JJ, Arango V (1999) Morphometry of the dorsal raphe nucleus serotonergic neurons in suicide victims. Biol Psychiatry 46:473–483
Walther DJ, Peter JU, Bashammakh S, Hörtnagl H, Voits M, Fink H, Bader M (2003) Synthesis of serotonin by a second tryptophan hydroxylase isoform. Science 299:76
World Health Organization (2014) Preventing suicide: a global imperative. WHO Press, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Republic of Serbia (Grant No. 173016). The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development had no further role in the study design, in the collection, analyses, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Ethics Committee of the Clinical Centre of Serbia (3672/10) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karanović, J., Ivković, M., Jovanović, V.M. et al. Effect of childhood general traumas on suicide attempt depends on TPH2 and ADARB1 variants in psychiatric patients. J Neural Transm 124, 621–629 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-017-1677-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-017-1677-z