Table 2.
Association of PTSD symptom clusters and DNA methylation of NR3C1 gene promoter in Rwandan womena
| PTSD symptom clusters (nfemales = 69) | NR3C1_CpG1 | NR3C1_CpG2 | NR3C1_CpG3 | NR3C1_CpG4 | NR3C1_CpG5 | NR3C1_CpG6 | NR3C1_CpG7 | NR3C1_CpG8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intrusionsb | ||||||||
| Spearman's ρ | −0.166 | 0.013 | −0.073 | 0.037 | 0.065 | 0.033 | −0.071 | 0.019 |
| p value | ||||||||
| Nominal | 0.173 | 0.916 | 0.553 | 0.763 | 0.598 | 0.785 | 0.561 | 0.876 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs, sex, and 3 PTSD symptom clusters | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Avoidanceb | ||||||||
| Spearman's ρ | −0.116 | −0.118 | −0.139 | 0.006 | −0.059 | −0.058 | −0.045 | 0.092 |
| p value | ||||||||
| P-value (nominal) | 0.344 | 0.333 | 0.256 | 0.963 | 0.633 | 0.635 | 0.714 | 0.45 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs, sex, and 3 PTSD symptom clusters | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Hyperarousalb | ||||||||
| Spearman's ρ | −0.003 | −0.014 | −0.052 | 0.053 | 0.002 | −0.04 | −0.057 | −0.033 |
| p value | ||||||||
| Nominal | 0.983 | 0.912 | 0.672 | 0.667 | 0.99 | 0.746 | 0.642 | 0.79 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs, sex, and 3 PTSD symptom clusters | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| PDS scoreb,c | ||||||||
| Spearman's ρ | −0.114 | −0.046 | −0.089 | 0.011 | 0.003 | −0.006 | −0.063 | 0.054 |
| p value | ||||||||
| Nominal | 0.352 | 0.706 | 0.469 | 0.928 | 0.982 | 0.959 | 0.605 | 0.657 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bonferroni correction for 8 CpGs, sex, and 3 PTSD symptom clusters | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| NR3C1 DNA methylation | ||||||||
| Mean | 3.23 | 1.90 | 3.55 | 1.10 | 2.42 | 4.16 | 5.43 | 2.29 |
| SD | 1.62 | 1.81 | 1.85 | 1.59 | 1.83 | 2.32 | 1.96 | 1.90 |
aCorrelation of NR3C1 gene promoter DNA methylation with sum of PTSD-specific symptom subscores according to PDS and DSM-IV. To account for trauma load, PTSD symptom cluster scores were divided by the sum of lifetime traumatic event types. Spearman's correlation ρ coefficients and the corresponding nominal and Bonferroni-corrected p values are shown for each symptom cluster.
bSum of specific symptom clusters corrected for total number of traumatic events in a lifetime.
cPDS score is not an additional symptom measure, as it represents the sum of the subscores of Intrusions, Avoidance and Hyperarousal.