A measure of glucocorticoid load provided by DNA methylation of Fkbp5 in mice.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale

Given the contribution of cortisol dysregulation to neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorders, it is important to be able to accurately compute glucocorticoid burden, a measure of allostatic load. One major problem in calculating cortisol burden is that existing measures reflect cortisol exposure over a short duration and have not been proven to reliably quantify cortisol burden over weeks or months.

Method

We treated two cohorts of mice with corticosterone in the drinking water and determined the relationship between serial plasma corticosterone levels drawn over 4 weeks and the whole-blood DNA methylation (DNAm) changes in a specific glucocorticoid-sensitive gene, Fkbp5, determined at the end of the treatment period.

Results

We observed that the percent red

SUBMITTER: Lee RS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3918452 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature