Brief ReportGene Expression Patterns Associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Exposure to the World Trade Center Attacks
Section snippets
Participants
A random sample of 20 Caucasians with high-magnitude exposure to 9/11 who met criteria for PTSD in at least two of four waves in a previously described longitudinal study (7) were recruited. Subjects were then stratified by age and gender to 20 similarly exposed Caucasians without PTSD. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. All participants provided written, informed consent. Participants were excluded if they had psychosis,
Results
Table 1 shows clinical characteristics of the sample. Differences were observed in childhood traumatization, number of lifetime traumas, and severity of PTSD symptoms.
Analysis of expression profiles revealed 17 probe sets, corresponding to 16 genes, differentially expressed between those with and without PTSD (Table 2). All genes showed present call rates of >90% in cases and control subjects, with the exception of probe set 238900_at, which showed a present call rate of 60% in control subjects
Discussion
Several of the identified regulated genes are involved in GR regulation, signal transduction, and brain and immune cell function. FKBP5 acts as an inhibitor of GR (via its function as a co-chaperone of the central heat-shock protein 90 [Hsp90]) (14) and has been associated with recurrence of depression and impaired recovery of the stress response (15, 16, 17). Here, FKBP5 expression was significantly lower in PTSD than in control subjects. Similarly, STAT5B is a direct inhibitor of the nuclear
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