The Impact of COMT and Childhood Maltreatment on Suicidal Behaviour in Affective Disorders

Alexandra Bernegger, Klemens Kienesberger, Laura Carlberg, Patrick Swoboda, Birgit Ludwig, Romina Koller, Michelle Inaner, Melanie Zotter, Nestor Kapusta, Martin Aigner, Helmuth Haslacher, Siegfried Kasper, Alexandra Schosser, Alexandra Bernegger, Klemens Kienesberger, Laura Carlberg, Patrick Swoboda, Birgit Ludwig, Romina Koller, Michelle Inaner, Melanie Zotter, Nestor Kapusta, Martin Aigner, Helmuth Haslacher, Siegfried Kasper, Alexandra Schosser

Abstract

The inconsistent findings on the association between COMT (catecholamine-O-methyl-transferase) and suicidal behaviour gave reason to choose a clear phenotype description of suicidal behaviour and take childhood maltreatment as environmental factor into account. The aim of this candidate-gene-association study was to eliminate heterogeneity within the sample by only recruiting affective disorder patients and find associations between COMT polymorphisms and defined suicidal phenotypes. In a sample of 258 affective disorder patients a detailed clinical assessment (e.g. CTQ, SCAN, HAMD, SBQ-R, VI-SURIAS, LPC) was performed. DNA of peripheral blood samples was genotyped using TaqMan® SNP Genotyping Assays. We observed that the haplotype GAT of rs737865, rs6269, rs4633 is significantly associated with suicide attempt (p = 0.003 [pcorr = 0.021]), and that there is a tendency towards self-harming behaviour (p = 0.02 [pcorr = 0.08]) and also NSSI (p = 0.03 [pcorr = 0.08]), though the p values did not resist multiple testing correction. The same effect we observed with the 4-marker slide window haplotype, GATA of rs737865, rs6269, rs4633, rs4680 (p = 0.009 [pcorr = 0.045]). The findings support an association between the COMT gene and suicidal behaviour phenotypes with and without childhood maltreatment as environmental factor.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors Bernegger, Kienesberger, Carlberg, Swoboda, Ludwig, Koller, Inaner, Zotter, Haslacher, Aigner, Kapusta and Schosser, declare no conflict of interest. Kasper received grants/research support, consulting fees and/or honoraria within the last three years from Angelini, AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals AG, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Janssen, KRKA-Pharma, Lundbeck, Neuraxpharm, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Schwabe and Servier.

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