Blood test to spot suicidal tendencies

Blood test to spot suicidal tendencies

LONDON: Scientists may have developed world's first blood test to predict if a person has suicidal tendencies. 

Researchers from Johns Hopkins in the US said they have discovered a chemical alteration in a single human gene linked to stress reactions that if confirmed in larger studies could give doctors a simple blood test to reliably predict a person's risk of attempting suicide. Tests showed the accuracy rate to be as high as 96%. 

The latest discovery suggests that changes in a gene involved in the function of the brain's response to stress hormones plays a significant role in turning what might otherwise be an unremarkable reaction to the strain of everyday life into suicidal thoughts and behaviours. 

"Suicide is a preventable public health problem but we have been stymied in our prevention efforts because we have no consistent way to predict those who are at increased risk of killing themselves," said study leader Zachary Kaminsky. 

"With a test like ours we may be able to stem suicide rates by identifying those people and intervening early enough to head off a catastrophe," he added. 

He focused on a genetic mutation in a gene known as SKA2. By looking at brain samples from mentally ill and healthy people the researchers found that levels of SKA2 were significantly reduced in samples from people who had died by suicide. Within this common mutation they then found in some subjects an epigenetic modification that altered the way the SKA2 gene functioned without changing the gene's underlying DNA sequence. The modification added chemicals called methyl groups to the gene. 

Higher levels of methylation were then found in the same study subjects who had killed themselves. The higher levels of methylation among suicide decedents were then replicated in two independent brain cohorts.