An Immunogenomic Phenotype Predicting Behavioral Treatment Response: Toward Precision Psychiatry for Mothers and Children with Trauma Exposure

Brain Behav Immun. 2021 Jul 20:S0889-1591(21)00276-2. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2021.07.012. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTInflammatory pathways predict antidepressant treatment non-response among individuals with major depression; yet, this phenomenon may have broader transdiagnostic and transtherapeutic relevance. Among trauma-exposed mothers (Mage=32 years) and their young children (M=4 years), we tested whether genomic and proteomic biomarkers of pro-inflammatory imbalance prospectively predicted treatment response (PTSD and depression) to an empirically-supported behavioral treatment. Forty-three mother-child dyads without chronic disease completed Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) for roughly 9 months. Maternal blood was drawn pre-treatment, CD14+ monocytes isolated, gene expression derived from RNA sequencing (n=34; Illumina HiSeq 4000;TruSeqcDNA library), and serum assayed (n=43) for C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß). Symptoms of PTSD and depression decreased significantly from pre- to post-treatment for both mothers and children (all p's<.01). Nonetheless, a higher pre-treatment maternal pro-inflammatory imbalance of M1-like versus M2-like macrophage-associated RNA expression (M1/M2)(ß=.476, p=.004) and IL-1ß (ß=.333, p=.029), but not CRP, predicted lesser improvements in maternal PTSD symptoms, unadjusted and adjusting for maternal age, BMI, ethnicity, antidepressant use, income, education, and US birth. Only higher pre-treatment M1/M2 predicted a ...
Source: Brain, Behavior, and Immunity - Category: Neurology Authors: Source Type: research