Gene expression profiling in blood: new diagnostics in alcoholism and addiction?Neuropsychopharmacology (2009) 34, 250–251;
The successful treatment of most diseases relies heavily upon early detection. Biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic value are critical to the addiction field. Most individuals with alcohol or drug dependence or use problems evade detection until severe medical, legal, or social consequences arise. The short half-life of alcohol in the blood after cessation of drinking eliminates the feasibility for using blood alcohol as a iomarker. Carbohydrate- deficient transferrin (CDT) is currently the most specific serum marker of chronic, heavy alcohol use (Reynaud et al, 2000), but the low sensitivity of the CDT test in the general population makes it an unreliable candidate for predicting either heavy alcohol use or for diagnosing alcohol abuse and/or dependence (Alte et al, 2004). Except for the drugs and their metabolites, there are not biomarkers for addiction.
Advances in the field of genomics offer new diagnostic and screening potential for complex genetic diseases like addiction. The ability to simultaneously measure the level of all possible transcripts (mRNAs) provides an unbiased view of potential biomarkers. The importance of understanding gene expression changes in alcohol and drug dependence can be appreciated by the impact of expression profiling in other diseases, most notably cancer, where studies have led to improved pharmacotherapies and to a molecular classification of disease.
. . . . . .
Request Reprint E-Mail: dayne.mayfield@mail.utexas.edu
_________________________________________________
