POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN CHILDREN RELATED TO CHILD ABUSE NEW GENETIC AND EPIGENETIC EVIDENCES

In children or adolescents who experiences severe traumatic events, including situations where someone's life (themselves and/or parents' lives) is threatened, or when major injuries occur (e.g., victims or witnesses of physical/sexual abuse), or victims of a car accidents or natural disasters, the risk of developing a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) becomes more likely. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, has recently suggested that PTSD related to child sex abuse, can manifest with unique clinical patterns, including specific signs and symptoms of varying clinical severity such as loosing interest in social activities, age-inappropriate behaviors, and loss of talking skills; other leading hallmarks are the tendency, in young and adult life, to repeat some forms of behavior perpetrated before against themselves. In addition, molecular genetic studies have recently demonstrated that abused children who develops PTSD, might experience a biologically and specific form of PTSD, different from other types of trauma causing this disorder, which include distinct genomic alterations and unique epigenetic DNA methylation profiles. We now report on a Pilot Multicenter Research's Study from the Institute of Neurological Science (ISN), the National Research Council of Italy (CNR); the study involves several experts on this topic, including molecular genetists, pediatrician and pediatric neurologists, child neuropsychiatrists, and psychologists. Main purpose of the study is to evaluate genetic and epigenetic influences in developing long-term neurobehavioral disorders and pediatric psychology disturbances related to the child abuse. In order to evaluated effect of epigenetic in PTSD related to child abuse, patients have been subdivided into three major class: 1) minors victims of child abuse who developed PTSD; 2) minors victims of child abuse who did not develop PTSD; and 3) minors who developed PTSD from other causes rather the child abuse. Based on RNA and DNA analysis from blood and saliva specimen, the experimental strategy consists of two parts: (i) the genetic screening to evaluate the role of specific risk allelic variants of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and Variable Numbers of Tandem Repeats (VNTRs) found in FKBP5 and MAOA genes related to PTDS; (ii) the detection of DNA methylation status of promoters and the quantitative measurement of gene expression. Our preliminary data seem to identify a strong correlation with epigenetic changes in both genes implicated in risk of PTSD.