Abstract
Anxiety disorders that are the most commonly occurring psychiatric disorders in childhood, are associated with a range of social and educational impairments and often continue into adulthood. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment option for the majority of cases, although up to 35–45% of children do not achieve remission. Recent research suggests that some genetic variants may be associated with a more beneficial response to psychological therapy. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation work at the interface between genetic and environmental influences. Furthermore, epigenetic alterations at the serotonin transporter (SERT) promoter region have been associated with environmental influences such as stressful life experiences. In this study, we measured DNA methylation upstream of SERT in 116 children with an anxiety disorder, before and after receiving CBT. Change during treatment in percentage DNA methylation was significantly different in treatment responders vs nonresponders. This effect was driven by one CpG site in particular, at which responders increased in methylation, whereas nonresponders showed a decrease in DNA methylation. This is the first study to demonstrate differences in SERT methylation change in association with response to a purely psychological therapy. These findings confirm that biological changes occur alongside changes in symptomatology following a psychological therapy such as CBT.
Similar content being viewed by others
Introduction
Anxiety disorders have negative implications for many aspects of everyday functioning.1,2 They often arise during childhood and are not only associated with adult anxiety disorders but also with other forms of adult psychopathology such as depression.3,4 Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment option for child and adolescent anxiety disorders with a remission rate of 56% following treatment, rising to around 65% at follow-up.5,6 Research exploring predictors of response to CBT in childhood anxiety disorders is somewhat mixed, but provides modest support for factors such as pretreatment symptom severity, comorbidity and parental psychopathology.7, 8, 9, 10 These factors are consistent with a possible genetic basis to CBT response.
Multiple genetic markers have been investigated for association with anxiety disorders and depression. Due to the success of anxiolytic and antidepressant drugs that target the serotonin transporter system11,12 and the critical role of the serotonin transporter in the termination of serotonergic neurotransmission, polymorphic variants of the serotonin transporter gene (SERT) have been widely studied. One of the best characterized of these variants is the serotonin transporter-linked polymorphic region, 5HTTLPR, which consists of a 43/44 bp insertion/deletion upstream of the transcription start site.13,14 Meta-analyses suggest that the short allelic variant of this region is associated with higher levels of anxiety and other related traits.15 This association is also subject to environmental influence, with studies of gene × environment interactions showing that the short allele carriers have the poorest outcomes (the highest levels of anxiety and depression) in high-stress, negative environments.16,17 However, individuals homozygous for the short allele also display better outcomes in low stress environments,18, 19, 20, 21, 22 suggesting that 5HTTLPR may represent an example of ‘Differential Susceptibility’, or a higher sensitivity to environmental influences.23
Therapies such as CBT provide an excellent setting in which to explore environmental influences in a gene × environment interaction context as the timing of treatment is known, allowing for prospective assessment of the association between symptoms and genetic factors.24 Previously, we published data showing a significant association between 5HTTLPR genotype and response to CBT in children with anxiety disorders.25 At follow-up, compared with L allele carriers, children homozygous for the short allele were 20% more likely to be free of their primary anxiety disorder diagnosis, and 18.8% more likely to be free of all anxiety disorder diagnoses.25 Children homozygous for the short allele also showed a significantly greater reduction in symptom severity than those with one or more long alleles. These findings reflect an interaction between genetic (5HTTLPR) and environmental (CBT) influences on outcome.
Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation are thought to work at the interface between genes and the environment as they are sensitive to changes in environmental stimuli. The SERT promoter region has been shown to be particularly variable in DNA methylation across time,26 and differential DNA methylation patterns at this region have been associated with a range of negative life experiences. A study of SERT DNA methylation in adoptees found altered methylation patterns in those who experienced a range of negative life events and stressful situations such as child abuse and loss.27, 28, 29 In the case of unresolved loss or trauma, changes in DNA methylation associated with outcome were dependent on 5HTTLPR genotype. Monozygotic twins offer the opportunity to study the effects of environmental influences on SERT methylation while controlling for genetics. For example, in a study of monozygotic twins discordant for bullying victimization, increased SERT methylation patterns were identified in the bullied twins compared with their co-twins with no history of bullying.30
The investigation of DNA methylation and outcome following psychological therapy is a new area of research. One previous study of participants with borderline personality disorders (n=115) suggested an association between poorer response to intensive dialectical behaviour therapy and increases in DNA methylation of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene.31 Another study of veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (n=16) found that higher pretreatment glucocorticoid-related NR3C1 methylation predicted treatment outcome, whereas FKBP5 gene methylation decreased across treatment time in association with recovery.32 However, some participants were also medicated in both studies.
In this study, we compared SERT DNA methylation change from pre- to post-treatment in 116 children receiving CBT for an anxiety disorder. Specifically, we compared mean changes in methylation during the treatment period for those who had and had not remitted from their primary anxiety disorder by the end of treatment and by the follow-up time point (6 months after the end of treatment). To our knowledge, this is the first study of response to a purely psychological therapy and changes in DNA methylation to focus on the SERT promoter region. Given the role played by DNA methylation in mediating the effect of the environment on emotional and behavioural outcomes, and previous findings that 5HTTLPR genotype is associated with treatment response, we hypothesized that treatment outcome would be associated with SERT DNA methylation changes during treatment.
Materials and Methods
Participants
Sample
Participants (n=116) represent a subsample of a larger longitudinal study exploring genetic predictors of therapy response. Subjects were recruited at clinical sites in Sydney, Australia (n=88) and Reading, UK (n=28), and provided buccal swab DNA samples at assessment sessions pre- and post-treatment, within 2 weeks of the first and last treatment session, respectively. Participants ranged in age from 6 to 13 years (mean age=9.34 years); 51.7% were male. All children completed a full course of manual-based CBT for a primary diagnosis of an anxiety disorder. Details of the specific treatment protocols at each site have been reported elsewhere.25 All trials and collection of samples were approved by Human Ethics and Biosafety Committees at both clinical sites. Parents provided informed consent, children provided assent. The storage and analysis of DNA for this study were approved by the Psychiatry, Nursing and Midwifery Research Ethics Sub-Committee at King’s College London, London, UK.
Anxiety disorder diagnoses
Participants were diagnosed according to the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV, Child and Parent Versions (ADIS-IV-C/P),33 and severity ratings (0–8) were made by graduate or clinical psychologists on the basis of composite parent and child reports. Anxiety disorder diagnoses corresponded to a clinical severity rating of 4 or greater. Clinical diagnoses were made at assessment sessions pre- and post-treatment, and also at a follow-up time point (6 months after the conclusion of treatment). Details of sample characteristics and primary anxiety disorder diagnoses made can be found in Table 1.
Methods
DNA preparation
DNA was collected at pre- and post-treatment using buccal swabs, and extracted using established procedures designed to maximize the purity and yield of DNA from the sample.34 Extracted genomic DNA (510 ng) was treated with sodium bisulphite using the EZ-96 DNA Methylation Kit (Zymo Research, Orange, CA, USA).
Bisulphite PCR
The SERT region targeted in this study is situated upstream of the promoter. To aid amplification, the sequence was split into two smaller, overlapping amplicons of 200 and 296 bp that covered the whole region (NCBI build 37, chromosome 17; (1) 28562753–28563048, (2) 28563022–28563221, see Supplementary Information, Figure 1a). Bisulphite-PCR primers for each amplicon were designed using the Sequenom EpiDesigner software. PCR amplification was conducted using 45 cycles at an annealing temperature of 56 °C, with Qiagen Hot Star Taq DNA Polymerase (Qiagen, UK) and Sequenom MassCLEAVE tagged primers (Primer sequences in Supplementary Information Table 1, amplicon sequences in Supplementary Information Figure 1b). Each PCR was performed in duplicate for both amplicons per sample, and the PCR products pooled by amplicon to minimize PCR bias.
Sequenom EpiTYPER
DNA methylation was quantitatively measured using the Sequenom EpiTYPER system (Sequenom, San Diego, CA, USA), which has been described previously.35 The sample reported (n=116) refers to samples that had bisulphite-PCR product available for both pre- and posttreatment time points.
Quality control
Artificially fully methylated and unmethylated samples were included as assay controls. Probes detecting an average methylation of <5% were excluded from any analyses. Following stringent quality control, quantitative methylation data from six CpG sites was obtained.
Analyses
We considered two measures of treatment response. First was primary anxiety response, defined as the absence of the primary anxiety diagnosis. Second was a broad anxiety response, defined as the absence of all anxiety diagnoses. Clinical outcome was assessed at posttreatment and at follow-up (6 months after treatment). Average DNA methylation was calculated where data were available for at least five probes at both time points. Change in DNA methylation during treatment (from pre- to posttreatment) was calculated for all CpG sites, and also as an average across the region. All analyses were performed in SPSS (version 20.0, IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA).
To correct for multiple testing, a revised significance threshold was calculated using Matrix Spectral Decomposition.36 This method uses correlation between methylation levels at the CpG sites to give an effective number of independent variables to correct for. In our data, the estimated number of independent variables was 5.641, corresponding with a significant threshold of P=0.009.
Results
Clinical outcome was in line with previous estimates. For primary and all anxiety diagnoses, remission rates were 48.3 and 29.3% at posttreatment, and 70.7 and 51.7% at follow-up (Table 2).
Percentage DNA methylation at pre- and posttreatment was not significantly different in the whole group at any CpG sites (Supplementary Table 2). However, there were significant differences between responders and nonresponders.
For primary anxiety response, those defined as responders at follow-up showed a small increase in SERT methylation during the treatment period (from pre- to posttreatment, +1.1%) at CpG site 4, whereas nonresponders showed a larger decrease in methylation (nominally significant;−5.9%, t(91)=2.114, P=0.037, d=0.499; see Figure 1a). The difference in DNA methylation change as an average across the whole region was not statistically significant between responders and nonresponders (t(114)=1.904, P=0.059, d=0.395). When split by primary anxiety response at posttreatment, responders and nonresponders did not differ significantly in change in methylation (all sites average: t(107)=−0.363, P=0.717, d=−0.070. CpG site 4: t(87)=0.021, P=0.984, d=0.000). Finally, when looking at change in symptom severity for the primary anxiety disorder from posttreatment to follow-up, there was a significant difference in average DNA methylation change (during treatment) across the region between participants who continued to improve from posttreatment to follow-up and those who showed no improvement or worsened (t(95.45)=3.067, P=0.003, d=0.591).
For all anxiety response, there was a significant difference between treatment responders and nonresponders at follow-up in average DNA methylation change during treatment (Figure 1: t(114)=2.981, P=0.004, d=0.554). This effect was driven by CpG site 4 in particular (Figure 1: t(91)=3.146, P=0.002, d=0.65). At this CpG site, responders showed an increase in methylation during treatment (mean change=+3.48%), whereas nonresponders showed a decrease in methylation during treatment (mean change=−5.44%). (The same pattern of results for all tests was detected when including an additional participant on a stable dose of anxiety medication (reported in Supplementary Information).)
Of note, when split by response at posttreatment, all anxiety responders and nonresponders did not differ significantly in change in methylation (all sites average: t(110)=−0.700, P=0.486, d=−0.089. CpG site 4: t(87)=−0.400, P=0.690, d=0.140).
There were no significant differences in DNA methylation change at CpG site 4 or average methylation change across the region between participants split by age (older vs younger), gender or treatment site (test statistics; see Supplementary Table 3). Treatment response groups (responders vs nonresponders for both primary anxiety outcome and all anxiety outcome, and improvers vs those who did not during the follow-up period for primary anxiety outcome) did not differ on any demographic variables tested (Supplementary Table 3).
Discussion
Our findings suggest that treatment responders and nonresponders have differential patterns of methylation change across a course of CBT. Responders showed an increase in percentage DNA methylation during treatment at one CpG site in the SERT promoter region, whereas nonresponders decreased in percentage DNA methylation. The results of the current study are comparable to those reported by a previous study of response to psychological therapy in borderline personality disorder, where responders and nonresponders showed a difference in the direction of change in brain-derived neurotrophic factor DNA methylation.31
Interestingly, this effect was not observable when participants were split by treatment outcome at posttreatment. However, there was a significant difference in average DNA methylation change across the region between those who continued to improve during the follow-up period, and those who worsened. The period between posttreatment and follow-up typically represents a period of consolidation, where the child continues to practice the skills and techniques they have learnt and developed during treatment. These results are in line with previous research from our team that found no effect of genotype immediately posttreatment, but that individuals homozygous for the S allele of the 5HTTLPR were 20% more likely to respond to CBT at follow-up.25
In this study, significant differences in DNA methylation change during treatment were found for those free of all anxiety disorder diagnoses at follow-up, but not for those only free of their primary anxiety diagnosis. Effect sizes using the all anxiety response measures were medium, but were small to medium for primary anxiety response.37 These findings suggest that the association between DNA methylation change and treatment response is strongest for those who are more general responders, rather than those whose response is disorder specific.
Psychological therapies such as CBT involve exposing the individual to the feared stimuli, and helping them to change the thought processes that surround fear and anxiety-provoking situations. Neuroimaging studies of CBT in anxiety disorders have demonstrated that there are functional changes in brain activation patterns across the course of treatment, and furthermore that these patterns are associated with differential response to CBT.38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 The findings that changes in neural activation patterns are associated with psychological outcomes, such as fear responses and remission, provide evidence that CBT is associated with biological processes. Studies in both humans and macaques have implied that epigenetic regulation of the SERT promoter region is associated with levels of SERT gene expression and differences in behaviour following environmental stress.28,45, 46, 47 Higher DNA methylation is often (though not always) associated with reduced gene expression.48,49 In this study, we find that anxious children who respond to CBT have increased levels of SERT DNA methylation over time. It is possible that this increase in methylation may correspond with a reduction in expression. Reduced gene expression is commonly linked with the short allele of the 5HTTLPR genotype,13 which we have previously shown to be associated with response to CBT.25 The demonstration that SERT DNA methylation patterns are associated with differential outcomes following CBT suggests that this may be a plausible mechanism by which the biological changes associated with alterations in thought processes occur.
The results should be considered preliminary as they have not yet been replicated. This study also has some limitations. First, the sample is relatively small, and was too small to look at the effect of genotype. However, we note that the power of the study is enhanced by the collection of samples from multiple time points. Second, we have no DNA samples to measure percentage DNA methylation at the follow-up time point. Given the findings from this and earlier studies that response to treatment at follow-up is associated with both 5HTTLPR genotype and changes in DNA methylation, future studies investigating potential biological mechanisms of response would benefit from including DNA samples at follow-up. Third, the DNA used was derived from buccal swabs. The design of this study meant that it was necessary to utilize peripheral tissue samples as they were collected from living participants at multiple time points. Furthermore, the use of a child sample precludes other tissues types. However, although tissue-specific differences in DNA methylation have been previously documented,50 recent research suggests that buccal swabs may be more representative than other peripheral tissues such as blood, as they have less cell heterogeneity and originate from the same developmental pathway as brain tissue.51 Finally, we were not able to measure SERT expression in this sample, and were therefore unable to investigate the functionality of the observed changes in DNA methylation at CpG site 4. However, differential DNA methylation in the SERT promoter region has previously been shown to be associated with altered gene expression.28
In conclusion, we have demonstrated that DNA methylation change during treatment is associated with response to CBT in children with anxiety disorders. The results, which require replication, support the hypothesis that response to environmental influences such as psychological therapy is associated with changes at a biological level.
References
Messer SC, Beidel DC . Psychosocial correlates of childhood anxiety disorders. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 1994; 33: 975–983.
Van Ameringen M, Mancini C, Farvolden P . The impact of anxiety disorders on educational achievement. J Anxiety Disord 2003; 17: 561–571.
Bittner A, Egger HL, Erkanli A, Jane Costello E, Foley DL, Angold A . What do childhood anxiety disorders predict? J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2007; 48: 1174–1183.
Cole DA, Peeke LG, Martin JM, Truglio R, Seroczynski AD . A longitudinal look at the relation between depression and anxiety in children and adolescents. J Consult Clin Psychol 1998; 66: 451–460.
Cartwright-Hatton S, Roberts C, Chitsabesan P, Fothergill C, Harrington R . Systematic review of the efficacy of cognitive behaviour therapies for childhood and adolescent anxiety disorders. Br J Clin Psychol 2004; 43: 421–436.
James AA, Soler A, Weatherall RR . Cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005.
Bodden DHM, Bögels SM, Nauta MH, De Haan E, Ringrose J, Appelboom C et al. Child versus family cognitive-behavioral therapy in clinically anxious youth: an efficacy and partial effectiveness study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2008; 47: 1384–1394.
Hudson JL . Efficacy of cognitive-behavioural therapy for children and adolescents with anxiety disorders. Behav Change 2005; 22: 55–70.
Ollendick TH, Jarrett MA, Grills-Taquechel AE, Hovey LD, Wolff JC . Comorbidity as a predictor and moderator of treatment outcome in youth with anxiety, affective, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional/conduct disorders. Clin Psychol Rev 2008; 28: 1447–1471.
Rapee RM, Schniering CA, Hudson JL . anxiety disorders during childhood and adolescence: origins and treatment. Annu Rev Clin Psychol 2009; 5: 311–341.
Piacentini J, Bennett S, Compton SN, Kendall PC, Birmaher B, Albano AM et al. 24- and 36-week outcomes for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS). J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2014; 53: 297–310.
Walkup JT, Albano AM, Piacentini J, Birmaher B, Compton SN, Sherrill JT et al. Cognitive behavioral therapy, sertraline, or a combination in childhood anxiety. N Engl J Med 2008; 359: 2753–2766.
Heils A, Teufel A, Petri S, Stöber G, Riederer P, Bengel D et al. Allelic variation of human serotonin transporter gene expression. J Neurochem 1996; 66: 2621–2624.
Lesch KP, Balling U, Gross J, Strauss K, Wolozin BL, Murphy DL et al. Organization of the human serotonin transporter gene. J Neural Transm Gen Sect 1994; 95: 157–162.
Sen S, Burmeister M, Ghosh D . Meta-analysis of the association between a serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and anxiety-related personality traits. Am J Med Genet B 2004; 127B: 85–89.
Caspi A, Sugden K, Moffitt TE, Taylor A, Craig IW, Harrington H et al. Influence of life stress on depression: moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science 2003; 301: 386–389.
Karg K, Burmeister M, Shedden K, Sen S . The serotonin transporter promoter variant (5-HTTLPR), stress, and depression meta-analysis revisited: evidence of genetic moderation. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2011; 68: 444–454.
Eley TC, Sugden K, Corsico A, Gregory AM, Sham P, McGuffin P et al. Gene-environment interaction analysis of serotonin system markers with adolescent depression. Mol Psychiatry 2004; 9: 908–915.
Stein MB, Campbell-Sills L, Gelernter J . Genetic variation in 5HTTLPR is associated with emotional resilience. Am J Med Genet B 2009; 150B: 900–906.
Taylor SE, Way BM, Welch WT, Hilmert CJ, Lehman BJ, Eisenberger NI . Early family environment, current adversity, the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism, and depressive symptomatology. Biol Psychiatry 2006; 60: 671–676.
Wilhelm K, Mitchell PB, Niven H, Finch A, Wedgwood L, Scimone A et al. Life events, first depression onset and the serotonin transporter gene. Br J Psychiatry 2006; 188: 210–215.
Bogdan R, Agrawal A, Gaffrey MS, Tillman R, Luby JL . Serotonin transporter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) genotype and stressful life events interact to predict preschool-onset depression: a replication and developmental extension. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2014; 55: 448–457.
Belsky J, Jonassaint C, Pluess M, Stanton M, Brummett B, Williams R . Vulnerability genes or plasticity genes. Mol Psychiatry 2009; 14: 746–754.
Lester KJ, Eley TC . Therapygenetics: using genetic markers to predict response to psychological treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. Biol Mood Anxiety Disord 2013; 3: 1–16.
Eley TC, Hudson JL, Creswell C, Tropeano M, Lester KJ, Cooper P et al. Therapygenetics: the 5HTTLPR and response to psychological therapy. Mol Psychiatry 2012; 17: 236–237.
Wong CCY, Caspi A, Williams B, Craig IW, Houts R, Ambler A et al. A longitudinal study of epigenetic variation in twins. Epigenetics 2010; 5: 516–526.
Beach SRH, Brody GH, Todorov AA, Gunter TD, Philibert RA . Methylation at 5HTT mediates the impact of child sex abuse on women's antisocial behavior: an examination of the Iowa adoptee sample. Psychosom Med 2010; 73: 83–87.
Philibert RA, Sandhu H, Hollenbeck N, Gunter T, Adams W, Madan A . The relationship of 5HTT (SLC6A4) methylation and genotype on mRNA expression and liability to major depression and alcohol dependence in subjects from the Iowa Adoption Studies. Am J Med Genet B 2008; 147B: 543–549.
van Ijzendoorn MH, Caspers K, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, Beach SRH, Philibert R . Methylation matters: interaction between methylation density and serotonin transporter genotype predicts unresolved loss or trauma. Biol Psychiatry 2010; 68: 405–407.
Ouellet-Morin I, Wong CCY, Danese A, Pariante CM, Papadopoulos AS, Mill J et al. Increased serotonin transporter gene (SERT) DNA methylation is associated with bullying victimization and blunted cortisol response to stress in childhood: a longitudinal study of discordant monozygotic twins. Psychol Med 2012; 43: 1813–1823.
Perroud N, Salzmann A, Prada P, Nicastro R, Hoeppli M, Furrer S et al. Response to psychotherapy in borderline personality disorder and methylation status of the BDNF gene. Transl Psychiatry 2013; 3: e207.
Yehuda R, Daskalakis NP, Desarnaud F, Makotkine I, Lehrner A, Koch E et al. Epigenetic biomarkers as predictors and correlates of symptom improvement following psychotherapy in combat veterans with PTSD. Front Psychiatry 2013; 4: 118.
Silverman WK, Albano AM . The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children-IV (Child and Parent Versions). Oxford University Press: New York, NY, USA, 1996.
Freeman B, Smith N, Curtis C, Huckett L, Mill J, Craig IW . DNA from buccal swabs recruited by mail: evaluation of storage effects on long-term stability and suitability for multiplex polymerase chain reaction genotyping. Behav Genet 2003; 33: 67–72.
Coolen MW, Statham AL, Gardiner-Garden M, Clark SJ . Genomic profiling of CpG methylation and allelic specificity using quantitative high-throughput mass spectrometry: critical evaluation and improvements. Nucleic Acids Res 2007; 35: e119.
Nyholt DR . A simple correction for multiple testing for single-nucleotide polymorphisms in linkage disequilibrium with each other. Am J Hum Genet 2004; 74: 765–769.
Cohen J . Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc: Hillsdale, NJ, USA, 1988.
Ball TM, Stein MB, Ramsawh HJ, Campbell-Sills L, Paulus MP . Single-subject anxiety treatment outcome prediction using functional neuroimaging. Neuropsychopharmacology 2014; 39: 1254–1261.
Doehrmann O, Ghosh SS, Polli FE, Reynolds GO, Horn F, Keshavan A et al. Predicting treatment response in social anxiety disorder from functional magnetic resonance imaging. JAMA Psychiatry 2013; 70: 87–97.
Ives-Deliperi VL, Howells F, Stein DJ, Meintjes EM, Horn N . The effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in patients with bipolar disorder: a controlled functional MRI investigation. J Affect Disord 2013; 150: 1152–1157.
Lipka J, Hoffmann M, Miltner WH, Straube T . Effects of cognitive-behavioral therapy on brain responses to subliminal and supraliminal threat and their functional significance in specific phobia. Biol Psychiatry advance online publication, 14 November 2013 (e-pub ahead of print).
Lueken U, Straube B, Konrad C, Wittchen H-U, Ströhle A, Wittmann A et al. Neural substrates of treatment response to cognitive-behavioral therapy in panic disorder with agoraphobia. Am J Psychiatry 2013; 170: 1345–1355.
Månsson KN, Carlbring P, Frick A, Engman J, Olsson CJ, Bodlund O et al. Altered neural correlates of affective processing after internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder. Psychiatry Res 2013; 214: 229–237.
Simmons AN, Norman SB, Spadoni AD, Strigo IA . Neurosubstrates of remission following prolonged exposure therapy in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychother Psychosom 2013; 82: 382–389.
Kinnally EL, Capitanio JP, Leibel R, Deng L, LeDuc C, Haghighi F et al. Epigenetic regulation of serotonin transporter expression and behavior in infant rhesus macaques. Genes Brain Behav 2010; 9: 575–582.
Kinnally EL, Tarara ER, Mason WA, Mendoza SP, Abel K, Lyons LA et al. Serotonin transporter expression is predicted by early life stress and is associated with disinhibited behavior in infant rhesus macaques. Genes Brain Behav 2010; 9: 45–52.
Wang D, Szyf M, Benkelfat C, Provençal N, Turecki G, Caramaschi D et al. Peripheral SLC6A4 DNA methylation is associated with in vivo measures of human brain serotonin synthesis and childhood physical aggression. PLoS One 2012; 7: e39501.
Jaenisch R, Bird A . Epigenetic regulation of gene expression: how the genome integrates intrinsic and environmental signals. Nat Genet 2003; 33: 245–254.
Jones PA, Takai D . The role of DNA methylation in mammalian epigenetics. Science 2001; 293: 1068–1070.
Davies M, Volta M, Pidsley R, Lunnon K, Dixit A, Lovestone S et al. Functional annotation of the human brain methylome identifies tissue-specific epigenetic variation across brain and blood. Genome Biol 2012; 13: 1–14.
Lowe R, Gemma C, Beyan H, Hawa MI, Bazeos A, Leslie RD et al. Buccals are likely to be a more informative surrogate tissue than blood for epigenome-wide association studies. Epigenetics 2013; 8: 445–454.
Acknowledgements
We thank Talia Morris, Irma Knuistingh Neven, Annabel Carol, Sophie Schneider, Sue Cruddace, Zoe Hughes, Kiri Clarke and Francoise Hentges for their work at the clinical sites. This study was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP0878609), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (PG1027556, PG382008 and PG488505) and the UK Medical Research Council (MRC; G0901874/1, MR/J011762/1, MRC/EME; TG09-800-17). CC was supported by MRC Fellowship G0601874. KJT was supported by MRC Doctoral Training Fellowship G0802326 (supervisors: PJC and CC). SR and JRIC were supported by the Humboldt foundation and the MRC. GB was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. This article presents independent research in part funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
RMR and JLH are authors of the Cool Kids program. CC was the joint author of book used in treatment within Overcoming trial and receives royalties from sales of the book. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Translational Psychiatry website
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
About this article
Cite this article
Roberts, S., Lester, K., Hudson, J. et al. Serotonin tranporter methylation and response to cognitive behaviour therapy in children with anxiety disorders. Transl Psychiatry 4, e444 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2014.83
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2014.83
This article is cited by
-
What do DNA methylation studies tell us about depression? A systematic review
Translational Psychiatry (2019)
-
The DNA methylome in panic disorder: a case-control and longitudinal psychotherapy-epigenetic study
Translational Psychiatry (2019)
-
DNA methylation in adolescents with anxiety disorder: a longitudinal study
Scientific Reports (2018)
-
Epigenome-wide association study of DNA methylation in panic disorder
Clinical Epigenetics (2017)
-
Genome-wide expression and response to exposure-based psychological therapy for anxiety disorders
Translational Psychiatry (2017)