Dna Methylation in Psychosis: Insights Into Etiology and Treatment

Abstract

Evidence for involvement of DNA methylation in psychosis forms the focus of this perspective. Of interest are results from two independent sets of experiments including rats treated with antipsychotic drugs and monozygotic twins discordant for schizophrenia. The results show that DNA methylation is increased in rats treated with antipsychotic drugs, reflecting the global effect of the drugs. Some of these changes are also seen in affected schizophrenic twins that were treated with antipsychotics. The genes and pathways identified in the unrelated experiments are relevant to neurodevelopment and psychiatric disorders. The common cause is hypothesized to be aberrations resulting from medication use. However, this needs to be established by future studies that address the origin of methylation changes in psychosis.

Keywords::

• antipsychotics
• DNA methylation
• environment
• epigenomics
• exposure
• mental disorders
• monozygotic twins
• olanzapine
• psychosis

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (OMHF), the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario (SSO) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). CA Castellani holds a CIHR CGS Award, EJ Diehl holds an NSERC CGS award and BI Laufer holds an NSERC PGS award. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (OMHF), the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario (SSO) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). CA Castellani holds a CIHR CGS Award, EJ Diehl holds an NSERC CGS award and BI Laufer holds an NSERC PGS award. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.