Genetic risk-factors for anxiety in healthy individuals: polymorphisms in genes important for the HPA axis

BMC Medical Genetics

India Morrison¹  Giovanni Novembre¹  Heléne Lindholm²  Linda Handlin²  Dan Malm³  Alexandra Krettek⁴ 

[1] Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden;Department of Biomedicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Skövde, Box 408, 54128, Skövde, Sweden;Department of Nursing Sciences, School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden;Department of Public Health, School of Health Sciences, University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden;Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Nutrition, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden;Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway;

关键词: Anxiety;    Stress;    HPA axis;    Polymorphism;    STAI;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12881-020-01123-w

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTwo important aspects for the development of anxiety disorders are genetic predisposition and alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In order to identify genetic risk-factors for anxiety, the aim of this exploratory study was to investigate possible relationships between genetic polymorphisms in genes important for the regulation and activity of the HPA axis and self-assessed anxiety in healthy individuals.MethodsDNA from 72 healthy participants, 37 women and 35 men, were included in the analyses. Their DNA was extracted and analysed for the following Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP)s: rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene, rs1360780 in the FKBP5 gene, rs53576 in the OXTR gene, 5-HTTLPR in SLC6A4 gene and rs6295 in the HTR1A gene. Self-assessed anxiety was measured by the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaire.ResultsSelf-assessed measure of both STAI-S and STAI-T were significantly higher in female than in male participants (p = 0.030 and p = 0.036, respectively). For SNP rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene, there was a significant difference in females in the score for STAI-S, where carriers of the G allele had higher scores compared to the females that were homozygous for the C allele (p < 0.01). For the SNP rs53576 in the OXTR gene, there was a significant difference in males, where carriers of the A allele had higher scores in STAI-T compared to the males that were homozygous for the G allele (p < 0.01).ConclusionThis study shows that SNP rs41423247 in the NR3C1 gene and SNP rs53576 in the OXTR gene are associated with self-assessed anxiety in healthy individuals in a gender-specific manner. This suggests that these SNP candidates are possible genetic risk-factors for anxiety.

【 授权许可】

CC BY