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Support for association of RORA variant and post traumatic stress symptoms in a population-based study of hurricane exposed adults

Molecular Psychiatry volume 18, pages 1148–1149 (2013)Cite this article

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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is moderately heritable, with estimates ranging from 30 to 70%.1 However, most of the genetic variation accounting for this heritability has yet to be identified, and the majority of molecular studies to date on PTSD have been candidate gene designs.2 Only one genome wide association study of PTSD has been published. In a sample of white non-Hispanic trauma-exposed veterans and their spouses/partners with and without PTSD, Logue and colleagues3 found that one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; rs8042149) in the retinoid-related orphan receptor alpha gene (RORA) reached genome-wide significance. RORA has been implicated, in part, in protecting brain cells from the damaging effects of injury, stress and disease,3 and it is possible that individuals with the variation in RORA may be at increased risk for developing PTSD due to deficits in initiating neuroprotective processes after trauma. We sought to provide supporting evidence for the genetic association between RORA*rs8042149 and PTSD using data from the 2004 Florida hurricanes study.

The 2004 Florida hurricanes study is based on a stressor-exposed epidemiologic sample of adults who were living in Florida counties that were declared disaster areas following Hurricanes: Charley, Francis, Ivan or Jeanne. Participants were selected via random digit-dial procedures, and they were interviewed via telephone about hurricane exposure, social support and posthurricane PTSD symptoms. Participants also were asked to provide saliva samples for genotyping (for details on response rate and associations of participation in the study, see4, 5). In this sample, we tested the most significant variant in RORA reported by Logue et al.3 by examining the association between rs8042129 and posthurricane DSM-IV PTSD symptom count (range 0–17, M=1.6, s.d.=2.6). We chose the symptom count as our outcome given the low prevalence of full diagnostic PTSD (2.7%). To reduce potential bias of population stratification, the sample for this report consisted of the self-identified European-American subsample of adults exposed to the 2004 Florida hurricanes who returned a DNA sample that yielded valid data for rs8042129 (n=551; 65% female). RORA rs8042129 genotype frequencies were in Harvey–Weinberg equilibrium, and genotype frequencies were as follows: G/G (n=159, 28.9%), G/T (n=280, 50.8%) and T/T (n=112, 20.3%). A linear regression analysis predicting posthurricane PTSD symptoms was conducted, controlling for covariates that emerged as significant predictors of PTSD in previous analyses (sex, age, hurricane exposure, social support; for example, Amstadter et al.).6 The overall model was significant, F(5,538)=9.75, P<0.001. Furthermore, the RORA rs8042149 SNP accounted for significant variance in PTSD symptom severity, β=−0.09, t=−2.20, P=0.028. Specifically, the G allele was associated with higher PTSD symptoms after the hurricane.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    A B Amstadter

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA

    J A Sumner, R Acierno, K J Ruggiero & D G Kilpatrick

  3. Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, Charleston, SC, USA

    R Acierno & K J Ruggiero

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    K C Koenen & S Galea

  5. Departments of Psychiatry, Genetics, & Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    J Gelernter

  6. VA CT Healthcare Center, West Haven, CT, USA

    J Gelernter

Authors
  1. A B Amstadter
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  2. J A Sumner
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  3. R Acierno
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  4. K J Ruggiero
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  5. K C Koenen
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  6. D G Kilpatrick
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  7. S Galea
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  8. J Gelernter
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Correspondence to A B Amstadter.

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Amstadter, A., Sumner, J., Acierno, R. et al. Support for association of RORA variant and post traumatic stress symptoms in a population-based study of hurricane exposed adults. Mol Psychiatry 18, 1148–1149 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2012.189

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