14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers from the Texas Biomedical Research Institute (TBRI) say that one or more genes in the human genomes could potentially be used as genetic biomarkers for either detecting depression, or identifying the patients that are most likely to develop the condition in the future.
Together with colleagues at the Yale University, scientists with the TBRI AT&T Genomics Computing Center (GCC) set out to identify the specific regions of the genome where these gene may be hiding.
In order to achieve this objective, the investigators used a method that analyzes thousands of potential risk factors for depression. The approach – which was developed at GCC – was able to identify areas of the genome that apparently enable the development of depression in susceptible individuals.
This investigation was largely triggered by official statistics published in the United States, which showed that about 17 percent of all Americans (nearly 1 in 5 people) will develop some form of depression at one point in their lives.
Some researchers have been suggesting that a susceptibility for major depressive syndrome is inherited from parents to offspring. However, studies conducted to test this association have thus far failed to uncover the hypothesized genes, PsychCentral reports.
“We were searching for things in psychiatric disease that are the equivalent of what cholesterol is to heart disease. We wanted to find things that can be measured in everybody and that can tell you something about risk for major depression,” GCC director John Blangero, PhD, explains.
The expert was also the lead author of the new study, which was published in the October issue of the medical journal Biological Psychiatry. The work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health.
In order to arrive at the new conclusions, investigators used data collected from the Genetics of Brain Structure and Function Study. This survey recorded data on 40 extended families living in and around San Antonio, Texas. All participants were of Mexican-American descent.
“We might be able to know in advance that a person will be less able to respond to the normal challenges that come about in life. Then doctors may be able to intervene earlier after a traumatic life event to remove some of the debilitation of depression,” Blangero explains.
He concludes by saying that his team analyzed over 11,000 heritable factors – called endophenotypes – that may have been involved in triggering depression. An area on chromosome 4 containing genes that regulate the gene RNF123 was found to be responsible for the link.