Epigenetic studies in crack dependents

• Grant number: 13/00659-2
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: June 01, 2014 - May 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Psychiatry
• Principal researcher: Homero Pinto Vallada Filho
• Grantee: Homero Pinto Vallada Filho
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

During the last twenty years, the use of cocaine and more recently crack has both increased and spread throughout the country, becoming a severe public health problem in Brazil. In an attempt to contribute to the understanding of this complex problem, our research group has worked, for more than ten years, on molecular genetic investigations in order to identify the biological risk factors for the dependency on crack/cocaine.The present project is divided in three parts: (1) the collection of saliva for DNA extraction of about a thousand crack dependents from an ongoing epidemiological research study (coordinated by Profs. Laranjeira Ronaldo and Marcelo Riberio). (2) the investigation of the methylation pattern of the entire genome of 50 crack dependents and its comparison with the methylation pattern of the genomes of 50 control subjects, (3) the study of the methylation pattern of specific genes, selected from the results of the global methylation study mentioned above, investigated in three groups: 1,000 crack dependents (newly collected epidemiological sample), in approximately 700 patients from our DNA bank (400 per cocaine dependent, 200 for cocaine and crack and 100 exclusively dependent on crack), and a control group (approximately 1,000) also from our DNA bank. This is an original study using the largest sample in the world to date for this kind of investigation and phenotype. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CAMILO, CAROLINE; MASCHIETTO, MARIANA; VIEIRA, HENRIQUE C.; TAHIRA, ANA C.; GOUVEIA, GISELE R.; FEIO DOS SANTOS, ANA C.; NEGRAO, ANDRE B.; RIBEIRO, MARCELO; LARANJEIRA, RONALDO; VALLADA, HOMERO; et al. Genome-wide DNA methylation profile in the peripheral blood of cocaine and crack dependents. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, v. 41, n. 6, p. 485-493, NOV-DEC 2019. (13/00659-2, 15/06281-7, 14/00041-1)