ArticleTranslational psychiatry2014
Effects of genetic and early environmental risk factors for depression on serotonin transporter expression and methylation profiles.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 123 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of COMT, BDNF and 5-HTT brain-genes on the development of anorexia nervosa: a systematic review.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2021Pooled it
- A systematic review of childhood maltreatment and DNA methylation: candidate gene and epigenome-wide approaches.Translational psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Adverse childhood experiences, epigenetics and telomere length variation in childhood and beyond: a systematic review of the literature.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- Longitudinal DNA methylation in parent-infant pairs impacted by intergenerational social adversity: An RCT of the Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting.Brain and behavior · 2024Trial
- Early life experiences, the neural epigenome and affective disorder risk.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Identification of comprehensive genetic factors, pathways, and shared genetic architecture of putamen volume in adolescent cohort.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Understanding attenuated positive facial expression in depressed women: central role of dorsal raphe network alterations and associated serotonin transporter methylation.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Early Life Stress and Adversity in Children: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms, Epigenetic Regulation, and Lifespan Developmental Outcomes-A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Bullying as an Adverse Childhood Experience?-State of the Art.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Correlation of non-suicidal self-injury with SLC6A4 promoter DNA methylation in children and adolescents with bipolar depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Hyperarousal, Dissociation, Emotion Dysregulation and Re-Experiencing-Towards Understanding Molecular Aspects of PTSD Symptoms.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Serotonin in depression and Alzheimer's disease: Focus on SSRI's beneficial effects.Ageing research reviews · 2024Review
- No association between peripheral serotonin-gene-related DNA methylation and brain serotonin neurotransmission in the healthy and depressed state.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
- Prenatal exposure to environmental air pollution and psychosocial stress jointly contribute to the epigenetic regulation of the serotonin transporter gene in newborns.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Article
- Genetic polymorphisms in the serotonin, dopamine and opioid pathways influence social attention in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).PloS one · 2023Article
- Evidence for increased DNA damage repair in the postmortem brain of the high stress-response group of schizophrenia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Evaluating the challenges and reproducibility of studies investigating DNA methylation signatures of psychological stress.Epigenomics · 2022Review
- No long-term effects of antenatal synthetic glucocorticoid exposure on epigenetic regulation of stress-related genes.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Prenatal maternal stress and offspring aggressive behavior: Intergenerational and transgenerational inheritance.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The serotonin transporter (SERT) gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) has been implicated in moderating the link between life stress and depression. However, respective molecular pathways of gene-environment (GxE) interaction are largely unknown. Sustained alterations in SERT gene expression profiles, possibly mediated by epigenetic modifications, are a frequent correlate of depression and may thus constitute a putative mediator of GxE interaction. Here, we aimed to investigate joint effects of 5-HTTLPR and self-reported environmental adversity throughout the lifespan (prenatal, early and recent stress/trauma) on in vivo SERT mRNA expression in peripheral blood cells. To further evaluate whether environmentally induced changes in SERT expression are mediated by epigenetic modifications, we analyzed 83 CpG sites within a 799-bp promoter-associated CpG island of the SERT gene using the highly sensitive method of bisulfite pyrosequencing. Participants were 133 healthy young adults. Our findings show that both the 5-HTTLPR S allele and maternal prenatal stress/child maltreatment are associated with reduced in vivo SERT mRNA expression in an additive manner. Remarkably, individuals carrying both the genetic and the environmental risk factors exhibited 32.8% (prenatal stress) and 56.3% (child maltreatment) lower SERT mRNA levels compared with those without any risk factor. Our data further indicated that changes in SERT mRNA levels were unlikely to be mediated by DNA methylation profiles within the SERT CpG island. It is thus conceivable that the persistent changes in SERT expression may in turn relate to altered serotonergic functioning and possibly convey differential disease vulnerability associated with 5-HTTLPR and early adversity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.