Suicide Risk May Show Up in the Blood
Newly identified serum biomarkers have the potential to flag patients, via blood testing, with major depressive disorder at high risk of suicide. Investigators found patients with MDD who died by suicide had a gene expression signature in blood distinct from patients with MDD who died by other means. The signature included genes involved in stress response changes, including polyamine metabolism, circadian rhythm, immune dysregulation, and telomere maintenance. "These blood biomarkers are an important step toward developing blood tests to identify patients with imminent risk of ending their lives," said study investigator Adolfo Sequeira, PhD, associate researcher in the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California Irvine School of Medicine. In blood, investigators identified 14 genes that significantly differentiated MDD-Suicide from MDD-NonSuicide. The top six genes differentially expressed in blood were PER3, MTPAP, SLC25A26, CD19, SOX9, and GAR1.