抑郁障碍发病机制的DNA甲基化调控假说

Hypothesis of DNA methylation in the pathogenesis of depressive disorder

抑郁障碍是一种常见的精神疾病,具体发病机制尚不清楚,目前认为该疾病是遗传与环境相互作用的结果。DNA甲基化是表观遗传学的核心内容,受遗传、环境共同影响,可对传统遗传学不能回答的问题进行合理的解释,目前相关研究也证实某些基因的低甲基化或高甲基化状态与抑郁障碍的发病可能具有密切的联系,将会为抑郁障碍的诊治提供新的靶点及方向。本文回顾了既往研究,明确了DNA甲基化水平与抑郁障碍相关的基因,对抑郁障碍的DNA甲基化调控机制最新研究进行了综述。

Depressive disorder is a kind of common mental disease,which is affected by the environment and heredity,but its etiological and pathophysiological bases are poorly understood. As the core of epigenetics,DNA methylation,affected by both genetic and environmental factors,can give reasonable explanations to the questions that can not be answered by traditional genetics. Currently,researches have confirmed that the hypomethylation or hypermethylation of some genes may have close relation with the pathogenesis of depressive disorder,thus it can provide a new therapeutic target and direction for the diagnosis and treatment of depressive disorder. In this paper,we reviewed the genes whose DNA methylation was related with depressive disorder indicated by previous researches,and recent studies on the DNA methylation in depressive disorder.