Pisanu Claudia, Vitali Erika, Meloni Anna, Congiu Donatella, Severino Giovanni, Ardau Raffaella, Chillotti Caterina, Trabucchi Luigi, Bortolomasi Marco, Gennarelli Massimo, Minelli Alessandra, Squassina Alessio
Department of Biomedical Science, Section of Neuroscience and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Cagliari, 09042 Cagliari, Italy.
Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine, University of Brescia, 25121 Brescia, Italy.
J Pers Med. 2021 Oct 27;11(11):1100. doi: 10.3390/jpm11111100.
Psychiatric disorders seem to be characterized by premature cell senescence. However, controversial results have also been reported. In addition, the relationship between accelerated aging and treatment-resistance has scarcely been investigated. In the current study, we measured leukocyte telomere length (LTL) in 148 patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD, 125 with major depressive disorder, MDD, and 23 with bipolar disorder, BD) treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and analyzed whether LTL was associated with different response profiles. We also compared LTL between patients with TRD and 335 non-psychiatric controls. For 107 patients for which genome-wide association data were available, we evaluated whether a significant overlap among genetic variants or genes associated with LTL and with response to ECT could be observed. LTL was negatively correlated with age (Spearman's correlation coefficient = -0.25, < 0.0001) and significantly shorter in patients with treatment-resistant MDD (Quade's F = 35.18, < 0.0001) or BD (Quade's F = 20.84, < 0.0001) compared to controls. Conversely, baseline LTL was not associated with response to ECT or remission. We did not detect any significant overlap between genetic variants or genes associated with LTL and response to ECT. Our results support previous findings suggesting premature cell senescence in patients with severe psychiatric disorders and suggest that LTL could not be a predictive biomarker of response to ECT.
精神障碍似乎以细胞过早衰老为特征。然而，也有相互矛盾的结果报道。此外，加速衰老与治疗抵抗之间的关系几乎未被研究。在本研究中，我们测量了148例接受电休克治疗（ECT）的难治性抑郁症（TRD，其中125例为重度抑郁症，MDD，23例为双相情感障碍，BD）患者的白细胞端粒长度（LTL），并分析LTL是否与不同的反应特征相关。我们还比较了TRD患者与335名非精神科对照者之间的LTL。对于107例可获得全基因组关联数据的患者，我们评估了是否能观察到与LTL及ECT反应相关的基因变异或基因之间存在显著重叠。LTL与年龄呈负相关（斯皮尔曼相关系数 = -0.25，< 0.0001），与对照相比，难治性MDD患者（Quade's F = 35.18，< 0.0001）或BD患者（Quade's F = 20.84，< 0.0001）的LTL显著更短。相反，基线LTL与ECT反应或缓解无关。我们未检测到与LTL及ECT反应相关的基因变异或基因之间存在任何显著重叠。我们的结果支持先前的研究结果，提示严重精神障碍患者存在细胞过早衰老，并表明LTL可能不是ECT反应的预测生物标志物。
