Posttraumatic stress disorder eliminates association of TrkB rs1187327 with HDL-C in Chinese Han adolescents.

Tropomyosin-related kinase receptor B (TrkB) has been observed to be a common player in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the regulation of serum lipids levels. However, interplays of PTSD with TrkB on serum lipids levels have not been explored yet. This study was to investigate the interplays of PTSD and TrkB rs1187327 on serum lipid profiles. Variants of TrkB rs1187327 of 709 high school students were identified by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analyses and verified by DNA sequencing. The PTSD Checklist Civilian Version (PCL-C) was used to assess PTSD. Colorimetric methods were used to determine the serum levels of triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and glucose. The results show that the GG homozygotes had a significantly higher level of HDL-C than the A allele carriers of TrkB rs1187327 after the adjustment for gender, age and body mass index (BMI) (1.44 ± 0.299 mmol/L vs. 1.39 ± 0.266 mmol/L, p = 0.036). When PTSD was taken into account, the higher than the A allele carriers level of HDL-C of the GG homozygotes was observed significant after the adjustment for gender, age and BMI only in the subjects without PTSD (1.44 ± 0.293 mmol/ L vs. 1.39 ± 0.267 mmol/L, p = 0.030), but not in the subjects with PTSD. These results suggest that the A allele of TrkB rs1187327 may be associated with decreased levels of serum HDL-C in general healthy adolescents, but not in adolescents with PTSD.