Reduced interleukin 1A gene expression in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of individuals with PTSD and depression

Abstract

The inflammatory system has been implicated in the pathophysiology of a variety of psychiatric conditions. Individuals with PTSD, depression, and other fear-and anxiety-related disorders exhibit alterations in peripheral circulating inflammatory markers, suggesting dysregulation of the inflammatory system. The relationship between inflammation and PTSD has been investigated almost exclusively in the periphery, and has not been extensively explored in human postmortem brain tissue. Interleukins (ILs) represent a subtype of cytokines and are key signaling proteins in the immune and inflammatory systems. Based on prior research implicating IL signaling in PTSD and depression, we performed a preliminary investigation of IL gene expression in a region of the cortex involved in emotion regulation and PTSD, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), using tissue from the newly established VA National PTSD Brain Bank. Gene expression analyses were conducted on post-mortem tissue from the dlPFC from 50 donors: 13 controls, 12 PTSD cases, and 25 depressed cases. RNA was extracted from frozen dlPFC tissue, reverse transcribed to cDNA, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to assess gene *

Inflammation in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Review of Potential Correlates of PTSD with a Neurological Perspective

“…Lastly, the literature selection criteria of the current review excluded a number of studies that provided significant evidence with regards to the pathophysiology of PTSD due to its comorbid sample population. As PTSD has a prevalence of comorbidity with a vast number of other chronic diseases [7][8][9]31,112,113], the segregation between PTSD with other medical conditions may limit our understanding of its pathophysiology if observed independently. Further research that investigate the pathogenesis of PTSD through a multi-level approach of inflammatory responses, clinical symptoms, and brain structural and functional changes, may help determine the detailed underlying pathway of PTSD, and open up novel strategies of assessment and intervention for the disorder.…”

An epigenome-wide association study of posttraumatic stress disorder in US veterans implicates several new DNA methylation loci

“…These regions were selected based on findings from functional and structural imaging studies of PTSD suggesting their involvement in the neurobiology of the disorder (see e.g., [34]). A detailed description of the donor identification, postmortem diagnostic assessment procedures, and tissue extraction and processing is presented elsewhere [24,35] and in Additional file 1.…”

Sex differences: Transcriptional signatures of stress exposure in male and female brains

“…Gene expression changes in the somatostatin and acetylcholine systems, metallothionein proteins, metal‐ion binding proteins, and the MAPK/ERK signaling have been, on the other hand, described in bipolar patients . Finally, only few transcriptomic studies on PTSD patients can be found in literature and they point at mitochondrial disfunction and alterations in the immune system as PTSD transcriptional signatures. However, most of these studies have been focused solely on male patients or did not stratify by sex.…”