BDNF CpG methylation and serum levels covary during alcohol withdrawal in patients with alcohol use disorder: A pilot study

Abstract

Objectives

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels vary in various conditions including alcohol use disorder (AUD). We aimed to identify drivers of these variations.

Methods

Twelve patients with AUD were assessed at hospitalisation for alcohol withdrawal and four months later. We looked for associations between the change in serum BDNF levels and (1) length of abstinence, (2) anxiety (Hamilton Anxiety Scale) and depression (Beck-Depression Inventory), (3) one functional BDNF genotype (rs6265) and (4) methylation levels of 12 CpG sites within the BDNF gene (located in exons I, IV and IX).

Results

While abstinence remained, serum BDNF level increased. This increase correlated with the variation of methylation levels of the BDNF gene, and more specifically of exon I. We found no significant effect of length of abstinence, rs6265, depression or anxiety on serum BDNF level.

Conclusions

Epigenetic regulation of the BDNF gene may be involved in variations of BDNF blood level associated with alcohol abstinence.

Keywords:

• Epigenetics
• BDNF
• alcohol use disorder
• Neurotropic factor
• genetic
• addiction
• gene-environment interaction
• epigenetic

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Laure Ferry and the Epigenomic Core Facility of the UMR7216 (http://parisepigenetics.com/ecf-en/) for doing Pyrosequencing.

Statement of interest

None to declare.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that this study has no source of funding.