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Projekt Druckansicht

Genomweite Assoziationsstudie zur Lithium-Response bei der bipolaren Störung im Kollektiv des internationalen Consortium on Lithium Genetics

Fachliche Zuordnung Biologische Psychiatrie
Förderung Förderung von 2010 bis 2014
Projektkennung Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 164764196
 
Erstellungsjahr 2015

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

Lithium is widely used in psychiatry. In Bipolar Disorder (BD), lithium acts as a mood stabilizer, preventing illness-induced episodes of mania and depression. Despite well-documented beneficial effects, only approximately one third of BD patients respond adequately to lithium treatment. Previous research has shown this treatment response to be familial. Similar to BD itself, response to lithium thus appears to be chiefly mediated by genetic factors. However, it remains unclear which molecular targets underlie this differential treatment responsiveness. Most previous studies have suffered from two drawbacks: 1) small sample sizes, leading to diminished statistical power and 2) different methods used to assess lithium responsiveness, often lacking psychometric standards. The present grant aimed to address these problems by establishing the ConLiGen Consortium, which aims at conducting well-powered molecular studies of lithium responsiveness in BD. Two milestones have been accomplished so far. Firstly, an international inter-rater reliability study has been conducted, identifying the optimal way in which response to lithium can be assessed in terms of psychometry. Secondly, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) has been conducted in more than 3,000 participants from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, using results from the inter-rater reliability study to optimize the way the lithium response phenotype is captured. First results of this study show lithium responsiveness to be associated with variations of four single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the gene AL157359.4 on chromosome 21. This DNA region is transcribed to long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA). The functional roles of lincRNAs are largely unknown. Results from the GWAS are currently being validated in independent samples of lithium-treated BD patients. Many further studies will be conducted in this unique sample. In the future, results might be used to establish a diagnostic test for lithium responsiveness in BD.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

 
 

Zusatzinformationen

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