Faculty Collaboration Database

Sex-based dimorphisms in expression of BDNF and BACE1 in bipolar patients. Compr Psychiatry 2019 May;91:29-33

Date

04/14/2019

Pubmed ID

30979423

DOI

10.1016/j.comppsych.2019.02.008

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85064003863 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   6 Citations

Abstract

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic, serious mental disorder distinguished by repeated episodes of mania and depression. Previous studies have demonstrated dysregulation of a number of transcripts in brain tissue or peripheral blood of BD patients. In the present study, we compared expression of two protein coding genes (brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and beta-secretase 1 (BACE1)) and their natural occurring anti-sense (AS) RNAs (BDNF-AS and BACE1-AS) in peripheral blood of 50 BD patients (mean age ± standard deviation (SD) = 36.5 ± 9.32) and 50 healthy subjects (mean age ± SD = 33.62 ± 8.59). BDNF and BACE1 were significantly up-regulated in peripheral blood of total BD patients compared with total healthy subjects (Expression ratio = 2.2, P value = 0.003; Expression ratio = 2.2, P value = 0.002 respectively). However, comparison of their levels in sex-based subgroups showed their up-regulations only in male patients compared with male health subjects (Expression ratio = 2.48, P value = 0.006; Expression ratio = 2.1, P value = 0.01). No significant differences were found in expressions of BDNF-AS and BACE1-AS between BD and health subjects. We detected a significant correlation between BDNF expression and age at disease onset in BD group after adjustment of the effects of sex (R = 0.26, P value = 0.03). Moreover, there were trends toward correlations between BDNF expression and disease duration in BD group and between BDNF expression and age in health subjects (P values = 0.05). Combination of BDNF, BDNF-AS and BACE1 expression levels could differentiate BD patients from healthy subjects with 68% sensitivity and 82% specificity (area under curve = 0.72, P value = 0.0001). The current study suggests a sex-based dimorphic pattern in expression of BDNF and BACE1. Moreover, our results imply that expression pattern of these genes could be diagnostic markers in BD. Future studies are needed to assess this speculation in larger patient samples.

Author List

Ghafouri-Fard S, Taheri M, Arsang-Jang S, Kholghi Oskooei V, Omrani MD

Author

Shahram Arsang-Jang Postdoctoral Fellow in the Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Amyloid Precursor Protein Secretases
Area Under Curve
Aspartic Acid Endopeptidases
Bipolar Disorder
Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
RNA, Antisense
Sensitivity and Specificity
Sex Characteristics