{"doi":"10.3389/fpsyt.2021.581093","title":"Gene Expression Differences Between Young Adults Based on Trauma History and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder","abstract":"Background: The purpose of this study was to identify gene expression differences associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma exposure (TE) in a three-group study design comprised of those with and without trauma exposure and PTSD. Methods: We conducted gene expression and gene network analyses in a sample ( n = 45) composed of female subjects of European Ancestry (EA) with PTSD, TE without PTSD, and controls. Results: We identified 283 genes differentially expressed between PTSD-TE groups. In an independent sample of Veterans ( n = 78) a small minority of these genes were also differentially expressed. We identified 7 gene network modules significantly associated with PTSD and TE (Bonferroni corrected p ≤ 0.05), which at a false discovery rate (FDR) of q ≤ 0.2, were significantly enriched for biological pathways involved in focal adhesion, neuroactive ligand receptor interaction, and immune related processes among others. Conclusions: This study uses gene network analyses to identify significant gene modules associated with PTSD, TE, and controls. On an individual gene level, we identified a large number of differentially expressed genes between PTSD-TE groups, a minority of which were also differentially expressed in the independent sample. We also demonstrate a lack of network module preservation between PTSD and TE, suggesting that the molecular signature of PTSD and trauma are likely independent of each other. Our results provide a basis for the identification of likely disease pathways and biomarkers involved in the etiology of PTSD.","journal":"Frontiers in Psychiatry","year":2021,"id":209803,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7852,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":797875,"name":"Vladimir I. Vladimirov","orcid":"0000-0002-7375-8950","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798434,"name":"Gowon O. McMichael","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798435,"name":"Zachary N. Taylor","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228507,"name":"Gary Hardiman","orcid":"0000-0003-4558-0400","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242219,"name":"Dongjun Chung","orcid":"0000-0002-8072-5671","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":378892,"name":"Zachary W. Adams","orcid":"0000-0002-0044-4926","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":383759,"name":"Carla Kmett Danielson","orcid":"0000-0001-5069-5072","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264429,"name":"Ananda B. Amstadter","orcid":"0000-0001-6285-9943","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":460795,"name":"Kaitlin E. Bountress","orcid":"0000-0001-7817-8341","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":85,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:08.869117Z","pmid":"33897478","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}