Catenin Alpha 2 May Be a Biomarker or Potential Drug Target in Psychiatric Disorders with Perseverative Negative Thinking

oleh: Nora Eszlari, Zsolt Bagyura, Andras Millinghoffer, Tamas Nagy, Gabriella Juhasz, Peter Antal, Bela Merkely, Gyorgy Bagdy

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2021-08-01

Deskripsi

AlphaN-catenin gene <i>CTNNA2</i> has been implicated in intrauterine brain development, as well as in several psychiatric disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Our present aim was to investigate <i>CTNNA2</i> gene-wide associations of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with psychiatric and cardiovascular risk factors to test the potential mediating role of rumination, a perseverative negative thinking phenotype in these associations. Linear mixed regression models were run by FaST-LMM within a sample of 795 individuals from the Budakalasz Health Examination Survey. The psychiatric outcome variables were rumination and its subtypes, and ten Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) scores including, e.g., obsessive-compulsive, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, and paranoid ideation. Cardiovascular outcome variables were BMI and the Framingham risk scores for cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke. We found nominally significant <i>CTNNA2</i> associations for every phenotype. Rumination totally mediated the associations of <i>CTNNA2</i> rs17019243 with eight out of ten BSI scores, but none with Framingham scores or BMI. Our results suggest that <i>CTNNA2</i> genetics may serve as biomarkers, and increasing the expression or function of CTNNA2 protein may be a potential new therapeutic approach in psychiatric disorders with perseverative negative thinking including, e.g., depression. Generally, an antiruminative agent could be a transdiagnostic and preventive psychopharmacon.