Project description:The aim of the study is to identify the global messenger RNA (mRNA) and long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) expression profiling in peripheral blood from thirty patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) and thirty paired normal controls.
Project description:Anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are complex psychiatric disorders with shared obsessive features, thought to arise from the interaction of multiple genes of small effect with environmental factors. Potential candidate genes for AN, BN, and OCD have been identified through clinical association and neuroimaging studies; however, recent genome-wide association studies of eating disorders (ED) so far have failed to report significant findings. Additionally, few if any studies have interrogated postmortem brain tissue for evidence of eQTLs associated with candidate genes, which has particular promise as an approach to elucidating molecular mechanisms of association. We therefore selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on candidate gene studies for AN, BN, and OCD from the literature, and examined the association of these SNPs with gene expression across the lifespan in prefrontal cortex of a non-psychiatric control cohort (N=268). Several risk-predisposing SNPs were significantly associated with gene expression among control subjects. We then measured gene expression in the prefrontal cortex of cases previously diagnosed with obsessive psychiatric disorders, e.g., eating disorders (ED; N=15), and obsessive-compulsive disorder/obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or tics (OCD/OCPD/Tic; N=16), and non-psychiatric controls (N=102) and identified 6 and 286 genes that were differentially expressed between ED compared to controls and OCD cases compared to controls, respectively (FDR < 5%). However, none of the clinical risk SNPs were among the eQTLs and none were significantly associated with gene expression within the broad obsessive cohort, suggesting larger sample sizes or other brain regions may be required to identify candidate molecular mechanisms of clinical association in postmortem brain datasets. Gene expression data from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) from postmortem tissue on 133 subjects - 15 eating disorder (ED) patients, 16 obessive compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, and 102 non-psychiatric controls - run on the Illumina HumanHT-12 v3 microarray
Project description:Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive actions, that presents the involvement of the cortico-striatal areas. The contribution of environmental risk factors to OCD development suggests that epigenetic mechanisms may contribute to its pathophysiology. DNA methylation changes and gene expression were evaluated in post-mortem brain tissues of the cortical (anterior cingulate gyrus and orbitofrontal cortex) and ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens, caudate nucleus and putamen) areas from eight OCD patients and eight matched controls. Results: There were no differentially methylated CpG (cytosine-phosphate-guanine) sites (DMSs) in any brain area, nevertheless gene modules generated from CpG sites and protein-protein-interaction (PPI) showed enriched gene modules for all brain areas between OCD cases and controls. All brain areas but nucleus accumbens presented a predominantly hypomethylation pattern for the differentially methylated regions (DMRs). Although there were common transcriptional factors that targeted these DMRs, their targeted differentially expressed genes were different among all brain areas. The protein-protein interaction network based on methylation and gene expression data reported that all brain areas were enriched for G-protein signaling pathway, immune response, apoptosis and synapse biological processes but each brain area also presented enrichment of specific signaling pathways. Finally, OCD patients and controls did not present significant DNA methylation age differences. Conclusions: DNA methylation changes in brain areas involved with OCD, especially those involved with genes related to synaptic plasticity and the immune system could mediate the action of genetic and environmental factors associated with OCD.
Project description:Anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are complex psychiatric disorders with shared obsessive features, thought to arise from the interaction of multiple genes of small effect with environmental factors. Potential candidate genes for AN, BN, and OCD have been identified through clinical association and neuroimaging studies; however, recent genome-wide association studies of eating disorders (ED) so far have failed to report significant findings. Additionally, few if any studies have interrogated postmortem brain tissue for evidence of eQTLs associated with candidate genes, which has particular promise as an approach to elucidating molecular mechanisms of association. We therefore selected single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) based on candidate gene studies for AN, BN, and OCD from the literature, and examined the association of these SNPs with gene expression across the lifespan in prefrontal cortex of a non-psychiatric control cohort (N=268). Several risk-predisposing SNPs were significantly associated with gene expression among control subjects. We then measured gene expression in the prefrontal cortex of cases previously diagnosed with obsessive psychiatric disorders, e.g., eating disorders (ED; N=15), and obsessive-compulsive disorder/obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or tics (OCD/OCPD/Tic; N=16), and non-psychiatric controls (N=102) and identified 6 and 286 genes that were differentially expressed between ED compared to controls and OCD cases compared to controls, respectively (FDR < 5%). However, none of the clinical risk SNPs were among the eQTLs and none were significantly associated with gene expression within the broad obsessive cohort, suggesting larger sample sizes or other brain regions may be required to identify candidate molecular mechanisms of clinical association in postmortem brain datasets.
Project description:<p>Excoriation disorder (ED), also known as neurotic excoriations, is a psychocutaneous disorder characterized by repetitive, compulsive picking of the skin leading to secondary tissue damage. ED carries an estimated prevalence of 1.4%, and is associated with significant social dysfunction, as patients often spend several hours each day performing compulsive behaviors leading to absence from work, school or other social events. Despite the significant impact on quality of life, there is still a lack of understanding of the factors involved in disease precipitation or progression, highlighting a need for identification of novel biomarkers of disease. The study of metabolic alterations, through plasma metabolomics, may lead to a greater understanding of disease pathogenesis, as metabolic alterations have been identified in related conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and in animal models of compulsive behavior. However, the metabolomic abnormalities present in ED have yet to be described. The purpose of this study is to perform an untargeted comparative plasma metabolomics analysis on ED patients and healthy controls to characterize the metabolic alterations in ED. Mass spectrometry quantified 76 total metabolites, 20 of which were identified as significantly different between ED and healthy controls, with four being increased and 16 being decreased in ED.</p><p><br></p>
Project description:Methamphetamine (METH) use disorder (MUD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder with loss of self-control over drug intake despite of negative consequences. The behavioral consequences of long-term METH intake on compulsive and non-compulsive individuals remain unclear. Herein we trained rats to self-administered METH 1st for 22 days than 8 days of foot-shock and 15 days of abstinence. Which was followed by 12 days of reinstatement to METH self-administration then 3 days of foot-shock and 15 days of abstinence. After 1st foot-shock phase we found two phenotypes based on their METH intake i.e., shock resistance (SR, compulsive), and shock sensitive (SS, non-compulsive). Interestingly during reinstatement of METH self-administration then foot-shock, some (resurgent shock resistance, RSR) non-compulsive rats, displayed compulsive METH intake behavior. During both abstinence period rats were tested for drug seeking behavior and SR rats displayed higher METH seeking then RSR and SS. 24 hour after 2nd withdrawal day testing, we compared transcriptional and epigenetic changes in dorsal striatum.