Project description:Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a debilitating mental health condition affecting millions worldwide. One critical yet often underexplored variable in MDD is the biological sex. Women are diagnosed with depression twice as often as men, account for two-thirds of suicide attempts, and tend to experience greater symptom severity, earlier onset, and longer depressive episodes.
Project description:Human genetic studies indicate that suicidal ideation and behavior are both heritable. Most studies have examined associations between aberrant gene expression and suicide behavior, but behavior risk is linked to severity of suicidal ideation. Through a gene network approach, this study investigates how gene co-expression patterns are associated with suicidal ideation and severity using RNA-seq data in peripheral blood from 46 live participants with elevated suicidal ideation and 46 with no ideation. Associations with presence of suicidal ideation were found within 18 co-expressed modules (p<0.05), as well as in 3 co-expressed modules associated with suicidal ideation severity (p<0.05, not explained by severity of depression). Suicidal ideation presence and severity-related gene modules with enrichment of genes involved in defense against microbial infection, inflammation, and adaptive immune response were identified, and investigated using RNA-seq data from postmortem brain that revealed gene expression differences with moderate effect sizes in suicide decedents vs. non-suicides in white matter, but not gray matter. Findings support a role of brain and peripheral blood inflammation in suicide risk, showing that suicidal ideation presence and severity are associated with an inflammatory signature detectable in blood and brain, indicating a biological continuity between ideation and suicidal behavior that may underlie a common heritability.
Project description:Human genetic studies indicate that suicidal ideation and behavior are both heritable. Most studies have examined associations between aberrant gene expression and suicide behavior, but behavior risk is linked to severity of suicidal ideation. Through a gene network approach, this study investigates how gene co-expression patterns are associated with suicidal ideation and severity using RNA-seq data in peripheral blood from 46 live participants with elevated suicidal ideation and 46 with no ideation. Associations with presence of suicidal ideation were found within 18 co-expressed modules (p<0.05), as well as in 3 co-expressed modules associated with suicidal ideation severity (p<0.05, not explained by severity of depression). Suicidal ideation presence and severity-related gene modules with enrichment of genes involved in defense against microbial infection, inflammation, and adaptive immune response were identified, and investigated using RNA-seq data from postmortem brain that revealed gene expression differences with moderate effect sizes in suicide decedents vs. non-suicides in white matter, but not gray matter. Findings support a role of brain and peripheral blood inflammation in suicide risk, showing that suicidal ideation presence and severity are associated with an inflammatory signature detectable in blood and brain, indicating a biological continuity between ideation and suicidal behavior that may underlie a common heritability.
Project description:Suicide and suicide attempts are complex behaviors that result from the interaction of different factors, including genetic variants that increase the predisposition to suicidal behaviors. Copy number variations (CNVs) are deletions or duplications of a segment of DNA usually larger than one kilobase. These structural genetic changes, although quite rare, have been associated with genetic liability to mental disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. No genome-wide level studies have been published investigating the potential role of CNVs in suicidal behaviors. Based on single-nucleotide polymorphism array data, we followed the Penn-CNV standards to detect CNVs in 1,608 subjects, comprising 475 suicide and suicide attempt cases and 1,133 controls. Although the initial algorithms determined the presence of CNVs on chromosomes 6 and 12 in seven and eight cases, respectively, compared with none of the controls, visual inspection of the raw data did not support this finding. Furthermore we were unable to validate these findings by CNV-specific real-time polymerase chain reaction. Additionally, rare CNV burden analysis did not find an association between the frequency or length of rare CNVs and suicidal behavior in our sample population. Although our findings suggest CNVs do not play an important role in the etiology of suicidal behaviors, they are not inconsistent with the strong evidence from the literature suggesting that other genetic variants account for a portion of the total phenotypic variability in suicidal behavior.
Project description:In eukaryotic cells, inefficient splicing is surprisingly common and leads to degradation of transcripts with retained introns. How pre-mRNAs are committed to nuclear decay is unknown. Here we uncover a mechanism by which intronic transcripts are targeted for nuclear degradation in fission yeast. Surprisingly, sequence elements within “suicidal” introns co-transcriptionally recruit the exosome adaptor Mmi1 not only to degrade unspliced precursor, but also to downregulate levels of the resulting mRNA. Under conditions permissive for fast splicing, Mmi1 is no longer recruited and negative expression regulation is relieved. This mechanism negatively regulates levels of the RNA-helicase DDX5/Dbp2 to ensure cell survival in response to stress. We propose that suicidal introns are maintained because they facilitate regulation of gene expression. We identify multiple novel Mmi1 targets including mRNAs, non-coding RNAs, and sn/snoRNAs. We suggest a general role in RNA regulation for Mmi1 beyond degradation of meiotic transcripts.
Project description:Local chronic inflammation exacerbates the prevalence and severity of associated distal organ comorbidities, causing catastrophic consequences for patients. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we found that periodontitis increased the circulating pro-inflammatory neutrophils, which could be easily recruited to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) joints and aggravated articular destruction. Single-cell multiomics sequencing has revealed that periodontitis induces transcriptomic and epigenomic rewiring of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), which display skewed differentiation toward the neutrophil lineage, resulting in an increase in pro-inflammatory neutrophils. We further identified that periodontitis-elevated type I interferons are responsible for guiding the continuous neutropoiesis bias in the bone marrow. Resolution of periodontitis can reverse the differentiation bias of HSPCs and alleviate the progression of RA. This study indicated that neutropoiesis bias induces the progression of inflammatory comorbidities and emphasizes the necessity of controlling local chronic inflammation in the management of inflammatory comorbidities.
Project description:Local chronic inflammation exacerbates the prevalence and severity of associated distal organ comorbidities, causing catastrophic consequences for patients. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we found that periodontitis increased the circulating pro-inflammatory neutrophils, which could be easily recruited to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) joints and aggravated articular destruction. Single-cell multiomics sequencing has revealed that periodontitis induces transcriptomic and epigenomic rewiring of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), which display skewed differentiation toward the neutrophil lineage, resulting in an increase in pro-inflammatory neutrophils. We further identified that periodontitis-elevated type I interferons are responsible for guiding the continuous neutropoiesis bias in the bone marrow. Resolution of periodontitis can reverse the differentiation bias of HSPCs and alleviate the progression of RA. This study indicated that neutropoiesis bias induces the progression of inflammatory comorbidities and emphasizes the necessity of controlling local chronic inflammation in the management of inflammatory comorbidities.
Project description:Local chronic inflammation exacerbates the prevalence and severity of associated distal organ comorbidities, causing catastrophic consequences for patients. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we found that periodontitis increased the circulating pro-inflammatory neutrophils, which could be easily recruited to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) joints and aggravated articular destruction. Single-cell multiomics sequencing has revealed that periodontitis induces transcriptomic and epigenomic rewiring of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), which display skewed differentiation toward the neutrophil lineage, resulting in an increase in pro-inflammatory neutrophils. We further identified that periodontitis-elevated type I interferons are responsible for guiding the continuous neutropoiesis bias in the bone marrow. Resolution of periodontitis can reverse the differentiation bias of HSPCs and alleviate the progression of RA. This study indicated that neutropoiesis bias induces the progression of inflammatory comorbidities and emphasizes the necessity of controlling local chronic inflammation in the management of inflammatory comorbidities.