DNA methylation may partly explain psychotropic drug-induced metabolic side effects: results from a prospective 1-month observational study

Background Metabolic side effects of psychotropic medications are a major drawback to patients’ successful treatment. Using an epigenome-wide approach, we aimed to investigate DNA methylation changes occurring secondary to psychotropic treatment and evaluate associations between 1-month metabolic changes and both baseline and 1-month changes in DNA methylation levels. Seventy-nine patients starting a weight gain inducing psychotropic treatment were selected from the PsyMetab study cohort. Epigenome-wide DNA methylation was measured at baseline and after 1 month of treatment, using the Illumina Methylation EPIC BeadChip. Results A global methylation increase was noted after the first month of treatment, which was more pronounced ( p < 2.2 × 10 –16 ) in patients whose weight remained stable (< 2.5% weight increase). Epigenome-wide significant methylation changes ( p < 9 × 10 −8 ) were observed at 52 loci in the whole cohort. When restricting the analysis to patients who underwent important early weight gain (≥ 5% weight increase), one locus (cg12209987) showed a significant increase in methylation levels ( p = 3.8 × 10 –8 ), which was also associated with increased weight gain in the whole cohort ( p = 0.004). Epigenome-wide association analyses failed to identify a significant link between metabolic changes and methylation data. Nevertheless, among the strongest associations, a potential causal effect of the baseline methylation level of cg11622362 on glycemia was revealed by a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis ( n = 3841 for instrument-exposure association; n = 314,916 for instrument-outcome association). Conclusion These findings provide new insights into the mechanisms of psychotropic drug-induced weight gain, revealing important epigenetic alterations upon treatment, some of which may play a mediatory role.