Depressive symptoms in mid‐pregnancy, lifetime stressors and the 5‐HTTLPR genotype

Abstract

Few studies of gene-environment interactions for the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), life stressors and depression have considered women separately or examined specific types of stressful life events. None have looked at depression during pregnancy. In the Pregnancy Outcomes and Community Health (POUCH) Study, women were queried about history of stressful life events and depressive symptoms at the time of enrollment (15-27 weeks gestation). Stressful life events were grouped a priori into ''subconstructs'' (e.g. economic, legal, abuse, loss) and evaluated by subconstruct, total subconstruct score and total stressful life event score. The effect of genotype on the association between stressful life events and elevated depressive symptoms was assessed in 568 white non-Hispanic participants. The relationship between exposure to abuse and elevated depressive symptoms was more pronounced in the s/s group (OR 5 24.5) than in the s/ l group (OR 5 3.0) and the l/l group (OR 5 7.7), but this significant interaction was detected only after excluding 73 (13%) women with recent use of psychotropic medications. There was no evidence of gene-environment interaction in analytic models with other stressful life events subconstructs, total subconstruct score or total stressful life events score. These data offer modest support to other reports of gene-environment interaction and highlight the importance of considering specific stressful life events.

The moderation by the serotonin transporter gene of environmental adversity in the aetiology of mental illness: review and methodological analysis

“…48 Six studies were cross-sectional surveys. 30,31,34,37,39,41,45 One study used a combined cohort/case-control design, selecting participants with extreme scores on either environmental adversity or depression for genotyping. 40 One study examined individuals exposed to a major stressor (myocardial infarction).…”

“…Taken at face value, there were eleven replications, 15,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] three partial replications in females only, [40][41][42] and three non-replications. [43][44][45] Importantly, two studies with very large samples were negative.…”

Childhood Maltreatment and County-Level Deprivation Jointly Modify the Effect of Serotonin Transporter Promoter Genotype on Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Girls

“…These findings were replicated by subsequent studies (Scheid et al, 2007), and detected not only in adults but also adolescents and children (Eley et al, 2004;Kaufman et al, 2004;Sjoberg et al, 2006). Nevertheless, some studies have either failed to detect any significant findings with respect to 5-HTTLPR x maltreatment interactions in depression (Chipman et al, 2007;Surtees et al, 2006) or have detected significant interactions, but for other 5-HTTLPR genotypes/alleles (Laucht et al, 2009).…”

The Influence of genetic factors on peripartum depression: A systematic review

“…Two of them (Scheid et al, 2011(Scheid et al, , 2007 verified a significant association between the short allele (s/s genotype) of the 5-HTTLPR and depressive symptoms during midpregnancy. These results were observed only when a specific stressful life experience -physical or sexual abuse -was considered for testing the effects of a gene-environment interaction.…”