Effect of Early Life Stress on the Epigenetic Profiles in Depression

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders and has caused an overwhelming burden on world health. Abundant studies have suggested that early life stress may grant depressive-like phenotypes in adults. Childhood adversities that occurred in the developmental period amplified stress events in adulthood. Epigenetic-environment interaction helps to explain the role of early life stress on adulthood depression. Early life stress shaped the epigenetic profiles of the HPA axis, monoamine, and neuropeptides. In the context of early adversities increasing the risk of depression, early life stress decreased the activity of the glucocorticoid receptors, halted the circulation and production of serotonin, and reduced the molecules involved in modulating the neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Generally, DNA methylation, histone modifications, and the regulation of non-coding RNAs programmed the epigenetic profiles to react to early life stress. However, genetic precondition, subtypes of early life stress, the timing of epigenetic status evaluated, demographic characteristics in humans, and strain traits in animals favored epigenetic outcomes. More research is needed to investigate the direct evidence for how early life stress-induced epigenetic changes contribute to the vulnerability of depression.

Early Life Stress and Metabolic Plasticity of Brain Cells: Impact on Neurogenesis and Angiogenesis

“…Presumably, it relates to epigenetic changes in mitochondrial or nuclear DNA leading to altered mitochondrial dynamics or diminished activity of mitochondrial enzymes. Such proposal has got some arguments in recent experimental studies and was excellently reviewed in [ 124 ]. Particularly, early-life social isolation results in elevated levels of neuronal H3K9me2, which corresponds to reduced expression of NMDA receptor subunits, NR1, and AMPA receptor subunits, GluR1 and GluR2 in rat hippocampus [ 125 ].…”

Construction of a Review About Epigenetics for Biology Teachers and Other Non-experts

“…However, epigenetic processes do not stop at birth; rather, they continue to be part of the fundamental cell processes during the rest of the life. In recent years, it has been obvious that epigenetic processes are involved in processes like learning (Collins et al, 2019;Kim & Kaang, 2017;Leighton et al, 2018), stress responses (Cao-Lei et al, 2016;Li et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2020), and during physical activity (Hall et al, 2020;Lindholm et al, 2014;Seaborne et al, 2018). Additionally, individuals suffering from different diseases and disorders present changed epigenetic patterns.…”

“…Thus, environmental signals contribute to decisions about which genes are expressed and thus what happens in our cells and consequently in our whole bodies. Environmental signals entering the body are of a great range of characters, emanating from, for example, stressful situations (Cao-Lei et al, 2016;Li et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2020), food and drink (De Fabiani et al, 2010;Landecker, 2011;Silva et al, 2019), and physical activity (Hall et al, 2020;Lindholm et al, 2014;Seaborne et al, 2018). This insight has great consequences; with the new knowledge of epigenetics, we could claim our ability to control and steer our lives to a higher degree than thought before.…”

“…The conclusion was that there is an incipient understanding of the critical role of epigenetics in fetal programming due to environmental factors. Li et al (2020) report on childhood adversities, which through epigenetic processes might be an explanation for depression in adulthood. The same ideas are shared by Xu et al (2020), who address that early life stress could induce mental illness.…”

Based on UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS, Systematic Network Pharmacology, and Molecular Docking to Explore the Potential Mechanism of Fructus Aurantii for Major Depression Disorder

“…Major Depression Disorder (MDD) is the most common chronic mental disease nowadays, mainly manifested as depression, loss of pleasure, cognitive impairment, panic, lack of initiative, anorexia, insomnia, suicide injury, and other behaviors. erefore, it is difficult to treat this disease due to its complexity, heterogeneity, and high recurrence [1][2][3][4]. Many records related to depression treated using traditional Chinese medicine are available, which divide MDD into six syndrome types: liver depression and spleen deficiency, liver depression and phlegm stagnation, liver depression and qi stagnation, heart and spleen deficiency, heart and kidney disharmony, and qi stagnation and blood stasis [5].…”