Cited by 65Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ResearchStress Responses and CortisolTraumatic Brain Injury Research

Blood-based gene-expression biomarkers of post-traumatic stress disorder among deployed marines: A pilot study

Open access
Tylee, Daniel S., Chandler, Sharon D., Nievergelt, Caroline M., Liu, Xiaohua, Pazol, Joel, Woelk, Christopher H., Lohr, James B., Kremen, William S. +3 more·2015·Psychoneuroendocrinology

Abstract

The etiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) likely involves the interaction of numerous genes and environmental factors. Similarly, gene-expression levels in peripheral blood are influenced by both genes and environment, and expression levels of many genes show good correspondence between peripheral blood and brain tissues. In that context, this pilot study sought to test the following hypotheses: (1) post-trauma expression levels of a gene subset in peripheral blood would differ between Marines with and without PTSD; (2) a diagnostic biomarker panel of PTSD among high-risk individuals could be developed based on gene-expression in readily assessable peripheral blood cells; and (3) a diagnostic panel based on expression of individual exons would surpass the accuracy of a model based on expression of full-length gene transcripts. Gene-expression levels in peripheral blood samples from 50 U.S. Marines (25 PTSD cases and 25 non-PTSD comparison subjects) were determined by microarray following their return from deployment to war-zones in Iraq or Afghanistan. The original sample was carved into training and test subsets for construction of support vector machine classifiers. The panel of peripheral blood biomarkers achieved 80% prediction accuracy in the test subset based on the expression of just two full-length transcripts (GSTM1 and GSTM2). A biomarker panel based on 20 exons attained an improved 90% accuracy in the test subset. Though further refinement and replication of these biomarker profiles are required, these preliminary results provide proof-of-principle for the diagnostic utility of blood-based mRNA-expression in PTSD among trauma-exposed individuals.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.09.024

Cites

44 of 44 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Several recent human gene expression studies show accumulating evidence for innate immune dysregulation after trauma and a particular and specific (i.e., comorbidity-independent) role of cytokines.

    “Respectively, several recent human gene expression studies show accumulating evidence for innate immune dysregulation after trauma and a particular and specific (i.e., comorbidity-independent) role of cytokines (211–215).”

    From Developmental Trajectories of Early Life Stress and Trauma: A Narrative Review on Neurobiological Aspects Beyond Stress System Dysregulation (2019) · cites this paper as [214]

    The Discussion (page not provided) reports that combining gene-expression results across studies yielded enrichment of cytokine-signaling and other immune-cell terms, supporting an immune-dysregulation link in PTSD. It does not establish a specific role for cytokines independent of comorbid conditions; the Discussion also says the individual studies showed no common enriched terms. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Transcripts of genes encoding enzymes involved in metabolism of reactive oxygen species such as GSTM1 and GSTM2 are altered in chronic PTSD and have been associated with risk for PTSD development in a prospective manner.

    “In addition, transcripts of genes encoding enzymes involved in metabolism of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as GSTM1 and GSTM2 (glutathione S-transferase mu 1 and 2) are altered in chronic PTSD (Neylan et al, 2011) and have been associated with risk for PTSD development in a prospective manner (Glatt et al, 2013;Tylee et al, 2015).”

    From Inflammation in Fear- and Anxiety-Based Disorders: PTSD, GAD, and Beyond (2017) · cites this paper as Tylee et al, 2015

    The Discussion reports that pre-deployment GSTM1 expression was associated with subsequent PTSD diagnosis, supporting a prospective association for GSTM1. It identifies GSTM1 and GSTM2 together as predictors of current PTSD, but does not report a prospective association for GSTM2. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Tylee, D. S., Chandler, S. D., Nievergelt, C. M., Liu, X., Pazol, J., Woelk, C. H., Lohr, J. B., Kremen, W. S., Baker, D. G., Glatt, S. J., & Tsuang, M. T.
Affiliations
  • SUNY Upstate Medical University (US)
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Glatt, Stephen J.
Venue
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-01
Volume
51
Pages
472-494
ISSN
0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2155023794
Cited by
65
References
42
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2
FWCI
5.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (submittedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R21MH085240, R01MH093500)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
Keywords
post-traumatic stress disorder, blood-based biomarkers, gene expression, Marines, GSTM1, GSTM2, exon expression, diagnostic biomarker panel, support vector machine classification, trauma exposure, gene-environment interaction
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Combat Disorders, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Military Personnel, Pilot Projects, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Biomarkers, Gene Expression, Iraq War, 2003-2011, Young Adult, Afghan Campaign 2001-

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review