Preclinical and Clinical Evidence of DNA Methylation Changes in Response to Trauma and Chronic Stress.

ABSTRACT: Exposure to chronic stress, either repeated severe acute or moderate sustained stress, is one of the strongest risk factors for the development of psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Chronic stress is linked with several lasting biological consequences, particularly to the stress endocrine system but also affecting intermediate phenotypes such as brain structure and function, immune function, and behavior. Although genetic predisposition confers a proportion of the risk, the most relevant molecular mechanisms determining those susceptible and resilient to the effects of stress and trauma may be epigenetic. Epigenetics refers to the mechanisms that regulate genomic information by dynamically changing the patterns of transcription and translation of genes

SUBMITTER: Matosin N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5831952 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature