TY - JOUR
T1 - Epigenetic Studies of Psychosis: Current Findings, Methodological Approaches, and Implications for Postmortem Research
AU - Pidsley, Ruth
AU - Mill, Jonathan
PY - 2011/1/15
Y1 - 2011/1/15
N2 - It has been widely speculated that epigenetic changes may play a role in the etiology of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Epigenetics is the study of mitotically heritable, but reversible, changes in gene expression that occur without a change in the genomic DNA sequence, brought about principally through alterations in DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Although numerous studies have examined psychosis-associated gene expression changes in postmortem brain samples, epigenetic studies of psychosis are in their infancy. In this article, we discuss methodologic and logistic issues related to epigenomic studies using postmortem brain tissue, before discussing the future implications of such research for our understanding of psychosis.
AB - It has been widely speculated that epigenetic changes may play a role in the etiology of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Epigenetics is the study of mitotically heritable, but reversible, changes in gene expression that occur without a change in the genomic DNA sequence, brought about principally through alterations in DNA methylation and chromatin structure. Although numerous studies have examined psychosis-associated gene expression changes in postmortem brain samples, epigenetic studies of psychosis are in their infancy. In this article, we discuss methodologic and logistic issues related to epigenomic studies using postmortem brain tissue, before discussing the future implications of such research for our understanding of psychosis.
U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.03.029
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.03.029
M3 - Article
SN - 1873-2402
VL - 69
SP - 146
EP - 156
JO - Biological psychiatry
JF - Biological psychiatry
IS - 2
ER -