Search for an epigenetic biomarker in ADHD diagnosis, based on the DAT1 gene 5’-UTR methylation: a new possible approach

Epigenetic regulation of DAT gene promoter modulates the risk of externalizing and internalizing behaviors on a normative population: An explorative study

“…To be noted that this is the first time, for CpG methylation data, that a matrix of pairwise correlations is investigated in a control group (composed of healthy volunteers). So far, the same innovative approach was only applied to clinical groups, composed of either ADHD or Parkinsonian patients and in Internet Addiction (Lambacher et al, 2020;Tafani et al, 2020;De Nardi et al, 2020). As far as the DAT1 5'-UTR is concerned, these clinicallyrecruited patients were characterized by an overall hypomethylated versus hyper-methylated vs. unchanged condition, respectively.…”

“…The indexes of probability for these four "situations" were: both methylated, M1-M2; first methylated and following de-methylated M1-D2, (M1) x (100-M2); first de-methylated and following methylated D2-M1, (100-M2) x (M1); both de-methylated D1-D2. For every couple (even across motif, non consecutive loci) we could still identify the same four possible situations (Lambacher et al 2020). Therefore, we decided to look for all the possible correlations between couples (probability of a given situation in one position vs probability of a given situation in any other intra-motif or inter-motif pair of positions).…”

DAT1 Gene Methylation as an Epigenetic Biomarker in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Commentary

“…The results are shown on Table 1. The M5-cos is correlated with M6-cos whereas the M1-cos, M2-cos, and M3cos are all strongly correlated one to each other: the profile on the opposite strand is identical to that found for the gene strand (see Lambacher et al, 2020). Moreover, the M6-cos is negatively correlated to M6 while the M1-cos is negatively correlated to M2.…”

“…Whereas, hyper-methylation in CpG M6 correlated with change of CGAS and Conners' after 6 weeks of therapy, thus serving an index of likelihood for therapeutic efficacy. Interestingly the CpG M5 turned out to be correlated with M6 on one side, and with M1, M2, M3 on the other hand (see also Lambacher et al, 2020).…”

“…Given negative correlations between strands, corresponding residues on the other (cos) strand could be used as well, but they anticovary: therefore, they could be considered as contributing for the proportion of demethylation. Therefore, the index should multiply the methylation level for gene-strand CpGs with ≪100 -methylation≫ for any CpG-cos (see Lambacher et al, 2020).…”