Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 9 pp 13124—13137
Gene expression signatures differentiating major depressive disorder from subsyndromal symptomatic depression
- 1 Clinical Research Center, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
- 2 Department of Psychiatry, Huangpu District Mental Health Center, Shanghai 200023, China
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, Hongkou District Mental Health Center, Shanghai 200083, China
- 4 Department of Neurology, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200127, China
- 5 CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai 20000, China
- 6 Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai 201108, China
Received: November 19, 2020 Accepted: March 27, 2021 Published: May 8, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202995How to Cite
Abstract
Subsyndromal symptomatic depression (SSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) have been classified as distinct diseases, due to their dissimilar gene expression profiles and responses to venlafaxine. To identify specific biomarkers of these two diseases, we conducted a secondary analysis of the gene expression signatures of SSD patients, MDD patients and healthy controls (n=8/group) from the study of Yi et al. Global, individual, specific, enrichment and co-expression analyses were used to compare the transcriptomic profiles of peripheral blood lymphocytes from the three groups. The global and individual analyses revealed that different genes were up- and downregulated in the SSD and MDD groups. Through our specific analysis, we identified 1719 and 3278 differentially expressed genes specifically associated with MDD and SSD, respectively. Enrichment and co-expression analyses demonstrated that the genes specific to MDD were enriched in pathways associated with hormone levels and immune responses, while those specific to SSD were associated with immune function. The specific hub gene for the MDD co-expression network was transmembrane protein 132B (TMEM132B), while the hub genes for SSD were actin-related protein 2/3 complex (ARPC2) and solute carrier family 5 member 5 (SLC5A5). This bioinformatic analysis has provided potential biomarkers that can distinguish SSD from MDD.
Abbreviations
DEGs: differentially expressed genes; FREM3: FRAS1-related extracellular matrix 3; HC: healthy control; HRSD-17: the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression; KEGG: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes; MDD: major depressive disorder; SSD: subsyndromal symptomatic depression.