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Polyamines and suicide risk

Molecular Psychiatry volume 18, pages 1242–1243 (2013)Cite this article

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Suicidality refers to complex and diverse phenotypes that comprise the presence of suicidal ideation, as well as varied self-injurious behaviors, including suicide attempts and completions. Although suicidality is a broad term that implies heterogeneous clinical presentations, which vary, among other things, in underlying psychopathology, suicide intent, as well as in content and character of suicidal ideation, presence of suicidality commonly elicits considerable concern given its potential lethal outcome. Assessment of suicide risk, however, is challenging. It is impossible to definitely predict suicide outcome and most studies suggest that both the sensitivity and specificity of suicide risk assessments, when taken at face value, are low.1 In addition, all assessments of suicide risk are conditional on the information communicated by the patient. While studies suggest that most individuals who commit suicide contact health-care professionals prior to their death, most cases do not communicate their suicide intent.2 Therefore, as in other areas of psychiatric research, there has been growing interest in the study of biomarkers to better understand and predict suicidality, both illness-related suicidality, as well as treatment-associated suicidal events. Among different types of biomarkers, the investigation of the transcriptome offers particular advantages. Downstream effects of different predictors and correlates of suicidality—genetic and/or environmental—are mediated by changes in gene function. Granted the limitations of using peripheral tissue to infer central nervous system processes, investigating differential gene expression patterns associated with suicidality is a promising avenue to identify potential biomarkers of suicidality and obtain valuable information for new potential avenues of intervention.

In this issue of Molecular Psychiatry, Le-Niculescu and colleagues3 report on a study investigating blood mRNA biomarkers of suicidality. To identify biomarkers, the authors used a combination of different designs and approaches. After using a prioritization process they dubbed Convergent Functional Genomics, the most significant differentially expressed gene associated with development of suicidality was spermidine/spermine N1-acetytransferase 1 (SAT1). Investigation of SAT1 blood levels in a follow-up sample suggested that high expression levels of this gene significantly predicted past and future hospitalizations associated with suicidality.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, McGill Group for Suicide Studies, McGill University, Douglas Hospital Research Centre, Verdun, QC, Canada

    G Turecki

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Correspondence to G Turecki.

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Turecki, G. Polyamines and suicide risk. Mol Psychiatry 18, 1242–1243 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2013.153

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