TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schiele, Miriam A.
A1  - Ziegler, Christiane
A1  - Kollert, Leonie
A1  - Katzorke, Andrea
A1  - Schartner, Christoph
A1  - Busch, Yasmin
A1  - Gromer, Daniel
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Pauli, Paul
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Herrmann, Martin J.
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
T1  - Plasticity of Functional MAOA Gene Methylation in Acrophobia
JF  - International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
N2  - Epigenetic mechanisms have been proposed to mediate fear extinction in animal models. Here, MAOA methylation was analyzed via direct sequencing of sodium bisulfite-treated DNA extracted from blood cells before and after a 2-week exposure therapy in a sample of n = 28 female patients with acrophobia as well as in n = 28 matched healthy female controls. Clinical response was measured using the Acrophobia Questionnaire and the Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaire. The functional relevance of altered MAOA methylation was investigated by luciferase-based reporter gene assays. MAOA methylation was found to be significantly decreased in patients with acrophobia compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, MAOA methylation levels were shown to significantly increase after treatment and correlate with treatment response as reflected by decreasing Acrophobia Questionnaire/Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaire scores. Functional analyses revealed decreased reporter gene activity in presence of methylated compared with unmethylated pCpGfree_MAOA reporter gene vector constructs. The present proof-of-concept psychotherapy-epigenetic study for the first time suggests functional MAOA methylation changes as a potential epigenetic correlate of treatment response in acrophobia and fosters further investigation into the notion of epigenetic mechanisms underlying fear extinction.
KW  - monoamine oxidase A
KW  - anxiety
KW  - extinction
KW  - epigenetics
KW  - DNA methylation
Y1  - 2018
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-228571
VL  - 21
IS  - 9
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gottschalk, Michael G.
A1  - Richter, Jan
A1  - Ziegler, Christiane
A1  - Schiele, Miriam A.
A1  - Mann, Julia
A1  - Geiger, Maximilian J.
A1  - Schartner, Christoph
A1  - Homola, György A.
A1  - Alpers, Georg W.
A1  - Büchel, Christian
A1  - Fehm, Lydia
A1  - Fydrich, Thomas
A1  - Gerlach, Alexander L.
A1  - Gloster, Andrew T.
A1  - Helbig-Lang, Sylvia
A1  - Kalisch, Raffael
A1  - Kircher, Tilo
A1  - Lang, Thomas
A1  - Lonsdorf, Tina B.
A1  - Pané-Farré, Christiane A.
A1  - Ströhle, Andreas
A1  - Weber, Heike
A1  - Zwanzger, Peter
A1  - Arolt, Volker
A1  - Romanos, Marcel
A1  - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich
A1  - Hamm, Alfons
A1  - Pauli, Paul
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Neufang, Susanne
A1  - Höfler, Michael
A1  - Domschke, Katharina
T1  - Orexin in the anxiety spectrum: association of a HCRTR1 polymorphism with panic disorder/agoraphobia, CBT treatment response and fear-related intermediate phenotypes
JF  - Translational Psychiatry
N2  - Preclinical studies point to a pivotal role of the orexin 1 (OX1) receptor in arousal and fear learning and therefore suggest the HCRTR1 gene as a prime candidate in panic disorder (PD) with/without agoraphobia (AG), PD/AG treatment response, and PD/AG-related intermediate phenotypes. Here, a multilevel approach was applied to test the non-synonymous HCRTR1 C/T Ile408Val gene variant (rs2271933) for association with PD/AG in two independent case-control samples (total n = 613 cases, 1839 healthy subjects), as an outcome predictor of a six-weeks exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in PD/AG patients (n = 189), as well as with respect to agoraphobic cognitions (ACQ) (n = 483 patients, n = 2382 healthy subjects), fMRI alerting network activation in healthy subjects (n = 94), and a behavioral avoidance task in PD/AG pre- and post-CBT (n = 271). The HCRTR1 rs2271933 T allele was associated with PD/AG in both samples independently, and in their meta-analysis (p = 4.2 × 10−7), particularly in the female subsample (p = 9.8 × 10−9). T allele carriers displayed a significantly poorer CBT outcome (e.g., Hamilton anxiety rating scale: p = 7.5 × 10−4). The T allele count was linked to higher ACQ sores in PD/AG and healthy subjects, decreased inferior frontal gyrus and increased locus coeruleus activation in the alerting network. Finally, the T allele count was associated with increased pre-CBT exposure avoidance and autonomic arousal as well as decreased post-CBT improvement. In sum, the present results provide converging evidence for an involvement of HCRTR1 gene variation in the etiology of PD/AG and PD/AG-related traits as well as treatment response to CBT, supporting future therapeutic approaches targeting the orexin-related arousal system.
KW  - human behaviour
KW  - molecular neuroscience
KW  - personalized medicine
KW  - predictive markers
KW  - psychiatric disorders
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-227479
VL  - 9
ER  -