Vousooghi Nasim, Shirazi Mitra-Sadat Sadat, Goodarzi Ali, Abharian Peyman Hassani, Zarrindast Mohammad-Reza
Department of Neuroscience, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.; Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS), Iranian Institute for Reduction of High-Risk Behaviors, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies (INCAS), Iranian Institute for Reduction of High-Risk Behaviors, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Basic Clin Neurosci. 2015 Jul;6(3):179-84.
X chromosome inactivation (XCI) is a process during which one of the two X chromosomes in female human is silenced leading to equal gene expression with males who have only one X chromosome. Here we have investigated XCI ratio in females with opioid addiction to see whether XCI skewness in women could be a risk factor for opioid addiction.
30 adult females meeting DSM IV criteria for opioid addiction and 30 control females with no known history of addiction were included in the study. Digested and undigested DNA samples which were extracted from blood were analyzed after amplification of the polymorphic androgen receptor (AR) gene located on the X chromosome. XCI skewness was studied in 3 ranges: 50:50-64:36 (random inactivation), 65:35-80:20 (moderately skewed) and >80:20 (highly skewed).
XCI from informative females in control group was 63% (N=19) random, 27% (N=8) moderately skewed and 10% (N=3) highly skewed. Addicted women showed 57%, 23% and 20%, respectively. The distribution and frequency of XCI status in women with opioid addiction was not significantly different from control group (P=0.55).
Our data did not approve our hypothesis of increased XCI skewness among women with opioid addiction or unbalanced (non-random) expression of genes associated with X chromosome in female opioid addicted subjects.
X染色体失活（XCI）是一个过程，在此过程中，女性两条X染色体中的一条会被沉默，从而导致与只有一条X染色体的男性的基因表达量相等。在此，我们研究了阿片类药物成瘾女性的XCI比例，以探讨女性XCI偏斜是否可能是阿片类药物成瘾的一个风险因素。
本研究纳入了30名符合DSM-IV阿片类药物成瘾标准的成年女性和30名无成瘾史的对照女性。从血液中提取的消化和未消化DNA样本，在位于X染色体上的多态性雄激素受体（AR）基因扩增后进行分析。在3个范围内研究XCI偏斜情况：50:50 - 64:36（随机失活）、65:35 - 80:20（中度偏斜）和>80:20（高度偏斜）。
对照组中信息充分女性的XCI情况为63%（N = 19）随机、27%（N = 8）中度偏斜和10%（N = 3）高度偏斜。成瘾女性的相应比例分别为57%、23%和20%。阿片类药物成瘾女性的XCI状态分布和频率与对照组无显著差异（P = 0.55）。
我们的数据不支持我们的假设，即阿片类药物成瘾女性中XCI偏斜增加或女性阿片类药物成瘾受试者中与X染色体相关基因的表达不平衡（非随机）。
