Reduced ribosomal DNA transcription in the prefrontal cortex of suicide victims: consistence of new molecular RT-qPCR findings with previous morphometric data from AgNOR-stained pyramidal neurons.

Reduced ribosomal DNA transcription in the prefrontal cortex of suicide victims: consistence of new molecular RT-qPCR findings with previous morphometric data from AgNOR-stained pyramidal neurons. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2021 Jan 26;: Authors: Krzyżanowska M, Rębała K, Steiner J, Kaliszan M, Pieśniak D, Karnecki K, Wiergowski M, Brisch R, Braun K, Jankowski Z, Kosmowska M, Chociej J, Gos T Abstract Prefrontal cortical regions play a key role in behavioural regulation, which is profoundly disturbed in suicide. The study was carried out on frozen cortical samples from the anterior cingulate cortex (dorsal and ventral parts, ACd and ACv), the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and the dorsolateral cortex (DLC) obtained from 20 suicide completers (predominantly violent) with unknown psychiatric diagnosis and 21 non-suicidal controls. The relative level of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) as a marker of the transcriptional activity of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) was evaluated bilaterally in prefrontal regions mentioned above (i.e. in eight regions of interest, ROIs) by reverse transcription and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The overall statistical analysis revealed a decrease in rDNA activity in suicide victims versus controls, particularly in male subjects. Further ROI-specific post hoc analyses revealed a significant decrease in this activity in suicides compared to non-suicides in five ROIs. This effect was accentuated in the ...
Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci Source Type: research