We measured suicidal ideation (SI) and suicide attempt (SA) history and the association of six gene polymorphisms with SB: COMT (rs4680), HTR1A (rs6295), TPH1 (rs1800532), BDNF (rs6265), SLC1A3 (rs2269272), and SLC1A2 (rs4755404).
The findings support an association between the COMT gene and suicidal behaviour phenotypes with and without childhood maltreatment as environmental factor.
In addition, we found an increased frequency of the COMT Met/Met genotype among suicidal (P=0.002) and patients who attempted suicide (P<0.001) and an increased frequency of COMT Val/Val genotype in patients with an early onset of alcohol dependence (P=0.004).
We focused on the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene (COMT) and we performed: a review of studies investigating the association between COMT and both suicidal behavior and personality; a meta-analysis of studies investigating the association between suicidal behavior and COMT rs4680 polymorphism; an association study investigating the link between seven COMT polymorphisms (rs737865, rs5844402, rs5993883, rs4680, rs4633, rs165599 and rs9332377) and both personality traits and suicidal behavior.
The results for COMT support past literature that has found a relationship between suicidal behavior and COMT, and has also found that the relationship differs for males and females.