Gene Variant Helps Stop Stress from Becoming Depression

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

When the going gets tough, some people barely notice. Others, weighed down by the stress of being fired or losing a loved one, become depressed. Research published today in the journal Science indicates that variation in a single gene more than doubles a person's chances of succumbing to depression in response to life's stresses.

Serotonin has long been linked with depression--many antidepressant medications affect the neurotransmitter's pathway in the brain. In the new work, an international team led by Avshalom Caspi of King's College London investigated the so-called serotonin transporter gene, 5-HTT. This gene codes a protein that recycles the chemical messenger after it has been released by neurons. The researchers studied 847 people born in the early 1970s to determine which variant of 5-HTT they carried, either the long or short form, and an ongoing health study provided details about the number of stressful events they had dealt with over the course of their lives. According to the report, people with two copies of the short variant were two and a half times more likely to become depressed following multiple stressful experiences than subjects who carried two copies of the long variant. In addition, only having the long form appears to confer protection against the condition after surviving traumatic events: subjects with two long alleles had the same rates of depression regardless of how many stressful episodes they had experienced.

"We are not reporting a gene that causes a disease," study co-author Terrie Moffitt of King's College London cautions. "Instead, we believe the gene helps influence whether people are resistant to the negative psychological effects of the unavoidable stresses of life." Although the findings are promising, the authors caution that they cannot yet form the basis for screening for depression. Says Moffitt: "If replication studies confirm that genotypes can predict in advance who is vulnerable to life stresses that bring on depression, this new knowledge could advance efforts to develop a diagnostic test of vulnerability to depression."

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American