Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Collegium Medicum, University of Zielona Góra, 65-046 Zielona Gora, Poland.
Independent Laboratory of Health Promotion, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, 70-204 Szczecin, Poland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 14;19(14):8602. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148602.
The dopaminergic system is a crucial element of the addiction processes. The dopamine transporter modulates the dynamics and levels of released dopamine in the synaptic cleft. Therefore, regulation of dopamine transporter () gene expression is critical for maintaining homeostasis in the dopaminergic system. The aim of our study is evaluation of the methylation status of 33 CpG islands located in the gene promoter region related to nicotine dependency. We investigated 142 nicotine-dependent subjects and 238 controls. Our results show that as many as 14 of the 33 CpG islands tested had statistically significantly higher methylation in the nicotine-dependent group compared to the control group. After applying Bonferroni correction, the total number of methylation sites was also significantly higher in the dependent subjects group. The analysis of the methylation status of particular CpG sites revealed a new direction of research regarding the biological aspects of nicotine addiction.
多巴胺能系统是成瘾过程中的一个关键因素。多巴胺转运蛋白调节突触间隙中释放的多巴胺的动态和水平。因此,多巴胺转运蛋白()基因表达的调节对于维持多巴胺能系统的内稳态至关重要。我们研究的目的是评估与尼古丁依赖相关的 基因启动子区域中 33 个 CpG 岛的甲基化状态。我们调查了 142 名尼古丁依赖者和 238 名对照者。我们的结果表明,在所测试的 33 个 CpG 岛中,多达 14 个在尼古丁依赖组中与对照组相比具有统计学上显著更高的甲基化水平。应用 Bonferroni 校正后,依赖组的总甲基化位点数量也显著更高。特定 CpG 位点的甲基化状态分析为尼古丁成瘾的生物学方面的研究提供了一个新的方向。