DNA Methylation and Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder (BD) is one of the major psychiatric disorders, which damages the cognition, emotion, and physical activity of patients and causes a huge financial burden on families and society. As an important epigenetic mechanism, DNA methylation is stable and reversible and has been considered to be implicated in the development of bipolar disorder through regulating gene expression. Currently, the detection of abnormal DNA methylation positions or regions in BD is mainly based on candidate genes and epigenomic-wide DNA methylation profiling. For example, many researchers have focused on abnormal DNA methylation of BD risk genes, such as COMT, SLC6A4, BDNF, and CACNA1C. In epigenomic-wide DNA methylation association studies, researchers have identified a few novel BD-associated aberrant DNA methylation positions or regions by improving experimental design, including more subjects, and using new DNA methylation detection technologies. In addition, DNA methylation editing technologies can be used to precisely manipulate DNA methylation and de-methylation in vivo or in vitro and uncover how DNA methylation affects gene transcription, which can be used to scientifically clarify the epigenetic mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of BD in future studies.