26. UNRAVELING THE HETEROGENEITY OF PTSD SYMPTOMS THROUGH IDENTIFYING EPIGENETIC SUBTYPES AMONG TRAUMA-EXPOSED CIVILIAN WOMEN

摘要: BackgroundPTSD is a heterogeneous psychiatric disorder with varying presentations of emotional modulation, symptom trajectories, and functioning. Recent advances in omics research have shed light on the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of PTSD symptoms. However, little is known about if biologically defined subtypes could be identified using epigenetic data and how they might relate to symptoms and health, particularly among civilian women.MethodsUsing data from a subsample of the Nurses’ Health Study II (n=707), we performed clustering among trauma exposed women using DNA methylation (DNAm) from two blood collections 11-16 years apart collected after trauma exposure, limited to 8,331 markers associated with lifetime PTSD symptoms measured in 2008 (re-experiencing, hyperarousal, and avoidance) with an FDRResultsThree epigenetic subtypes were identified, which consisted of 352 …