A transcriptomic approach for the evaluation of risk biomarkers in adolescents with a history of a traumatic childhood

The experience of childhood maltreatment (CM) is highly associated with the occurrence of psychiatric disorders. The impact of CM on neurodevelopmental trajectories is not fully elucidated. Here, we aim to investigate, the impact of different types of CM on the transcriptome expressed by peripheral blood mononuclear cells in adolescence. Adolescents who experienced different types of CM or normal environment were exposed to a comprehensive screening aimed to evaluate psychological and behavioural parameters. Among them, we selected four subpopulations, that experienced respectively Abuse (A), Neglect (N), Abuse and neglect (AN), normal childhood (C). To identify biological markers of their respective experience, mRNA-Seq analysis was performed in PBMC extracted from their blood sampling. We recruited 37 young adults individuals that experienced different type of adversities during childhood and distributed them in 4 groups based on the quality of their infancy::1. Abuse (physical or emotional, n=9 rep), 2. Neglect (Physical or emotional, n=8 rep), 3. Abuse and Neglect (n=10 rep), 4. Control (n=10 rep). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated from their blood samples and comparative gene expression profiling analysis was performed using data obtained from mRNA Seq analysis.