EpiWE project, the molecular signature of violence in women’s victim genome

Introduction: Violence against women represents a chronic and global health plague and, due to its serious consequences on women’s health, needs to be approached at multisciplinary level. The short-term effects of violence are more evident, while the exhaustive evaluation of long-term effects still remains a challenge. It has been demonstrated that the signs of violence interfere with genome plasticity and gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms. Materials and Methods: Cases were enrolled by systematic sampling of victims of violence screened at the Emergency Department in all the italian regions. The psychological evaluation was performed in a cohort of 700 women. Biological samples from women’s victims were analysed for differential methylation in a panel of genes involved in post traumatic stress disorder. Results: Quantitative methylation evaluation of a panel of genes already reported as associated with trauma/stress-related disorders was performed by MassARRAY (Agena, Bioscience) in 63 victims and 80 controls. The evaluation of LINE1 methylation, for global methylation assessment is in progress, (pyrosquencing, Qiagen). Conclusions: Early detection of post-traumatic stress disorder cases represent a priority area of research, which is focused not only on the susceptibility but also on the resilience or not resilience to PTSD. The interaction between genome and environmental factors, such as violence, represents one of the major challenges in precision and preventive medicine. By knowing the mechanisms responsible for resilience, we can derive clues about the best treatment and the best public policy.