Gene expression meta-analysis in the prefrontal cortex: unraveling biological underpinnings of suicidal risk.
Overview
- Institute of Scientific Research, Juarez University of the State of Durango,Durango, Dgo. C.P. 34070 México
- Faculty of Chemical Sciences, Juarez University of the State of Durango,Durango, Dgo. C.P. 34070 México
- Faculty of Dentistry, Juarez University of the State of Durango,Durango, Dgo. C.P. 34070 México
Abstract
Background: Suicide is a complex public health challenge. Although psychosocial factors are important, molecular dysregulations in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) have been implicated in suicidal behavior.
Methods: Six post-mortem PFC transcriptomic datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) were analyzed to investigate the molecular basis of suicide, a major public health problem whose underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. After harmonizing microarray and sequencing data from 248 individuals younger than 60 years, both global and diagnosis-stratified meta-analyses were performed, focusing on major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BPD).
Results: In the overall comparison between suicide cases and controls, 10 nominally differentially expressed genes were identified, although none remained significant after multiple-testing correction. In the MDD-stratified analysis, four genes survived false discovery rate (FDR) correction (HRH3, PDE2A, NET1, and RHBDF2) and were associated with stress-related pathways, cyclic nucleotide signaling, and synaptic organization. No significant genes were identified in the bipolar disorder subgroup.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that suicide-related transcriptomic alterations in the PFC are not uniform or clearly transdiagnostic, but may be partly shaped by the underlying psychiatric diagnosis, with a more clearly detectable signal in cases with MDD. This study provides a harmonized, bias-aware framework for integrating heterogeneous post-mortem transcriptomic datasets; however, the results should be interpreted as hypothesis-generating candidate signals rather than as definitive biomarkers, and require independent replication and functional validation.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
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Data
Datasets cited
- figshare:33055972, at figshare; found in DataCite
Other data links
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
geo , NCBI; found in the text, “Data mining”
Data availability
Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Versions
The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.
Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record
Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 10 authors, 5 keywords, 7 MeSH terms, 53 references.
Cite
This paper
Ramos-Rosales, D. F., Echeverria-Carrillo, C. A., Barraza-Salas, M., Cervantes-Flores, M., Salas-Pacheco, S. M., Méndez-Hernández, E. M., Castellanos-Juárez, F. X., Llave-León, O. L., Sandoval-Carrillo, A. A., & Salas-Pacheco, J. M. (2026). Gene expression meta-analysis in the prefrontal cortex: unraveling biological underpinnings of suicidal risk. BMC psychiatry, 26(1), 545. https://
BibTeX
@article{ramosrosales202
author = {Ramos-Rosales, Daniel F. and Echeverria-Carrillo, Cristian A. and Barraza-Salas, Marcelo and Cervantes-Flores, Maribel and Salas-Pacheco, Sergio M. and Méndez-Hernández, Edna M. and Castellanos-Juárez, Francisco X. and Llave-León, Osmel La and Sandoval-Carrillo, Ada A. and Salas-Pacheco, José M.},
title = {{Gene expression meta-analysis in the prefrontal cortex: unraveling biological underpinnings of suicidal risk}},
journal = {BMC psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = may,
volume = {26},
number = {1},
pages = {545},
publisher = {BMC},
issn = {1471-244X},
doi = {10.1186/
url = {https://
pmid = {42163165},
pmcid = {PMC13390219}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - Ramos-Rosales, Daniel F.
AU - Echeverria-Carrillo, Cristian A.
AU - Barraza-Salas, Marcelo
AU - Cervantes-Flores, Maribel
AU - Salas-Pacheco, Sergio M.
AU - Méndez-Hernández, Edna M.
AU - Castellanos-Juárez, Francisco X.
AU - Llave-León, Osmel La
AU - Sandoval-Carrillo, Ada A.
AU - Salas-Pacheco, José M.
TI - Gene expression meta-analysis in the prefrontal cortex: unraveling biological underpinnings of suicidal risk
T2 - BMC psychiatry
J2 - BMC Psychiatry
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 26
IS - 1
SP - 545
SN - 1471-244X
PB - BMC
DO - 10.1186/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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