Aurel's laurels

Mol Psychiatry. 2000 Jan;5(1):32-8.

The human serotonin transporter gene linked polymorphism (5-HTTLPR)

Nakamura M, Ueno S, Sano A, Tanabe H.

The Department of Neuropsychiatry, Ehime University School of Medicine, Shitsukawa, Shigenobu, Onsen-gun, Ehime 791-0295, Japan.

The serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene is a promising candidate for introducing the heritability of interindividual variation in personality and the genetic susceptibility for various psychiatric diseases.

In the present study, we examined the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in detail and identified ten novel sequence variants, concluding that the alleles reported as S and L are divided into four and six kinds of allelic variant, respectively. Subsequently, we developed a method for genotyping. The total number of alleles (14-A, 14-B, 14-C, 14-D, 15, 16-A, 16-B, 16-C, 16-D, 16-E, 16-F, 19, 20 and 22) in the 5-HTTLPR was 14 in our populations (Japanese: n = 131; Caucasian: n = 74) in the present study. In addition, a significant ethnic difference between Japanese and Caucasian populations was observed for distributions of alleles and genotypes. HTTLPR should be revised by genotyping with a more complete subdivision of alleles.

Molecular Psychiatry (2000) 5, 32-38.

PMID: 10673766 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


This is all pretty complicated for me, but I want to follow 5-LTTLPR research and try to make sense of it from a layman's point of view. Some people are clearly more depressed than others and it is clear to me that their life experiences don't always warrant the depressions to which they are subject. As a teenager, I grew up watching my mother go through a serious depression and, from my university days, I have always been fascinated by the brain chemistry component of our emotional states as well as by the suffering we accumulate by what we do and what happens to us.