New Blood Test Could Predict Suicide Risk in Patients

Could there be a blood test that can predict a person's suicide risk? Scientists have found that there's a chemical alteration in a single human gene linked to stress reactions that could potentially result in a simple blood test that can predict a person's likelihood of attempting suicide.

"Suicide is a major preventable public health problem, but we have been stymied in our prevention efforts because we have no consistent way to predict those who are at increased risk of killing themselves," said Zachary Kaminsky, the study leader, in a news release. "With a test like ours, we may be able to stem suicide rates by identifying those people and intervening early enough to head off a catastrophe."

The new test relies on a genetic mutation in a gene known as SKA2. In this case, the researchers found that in samples from people who had died by suicide, the levels of SKA2 were significantly reduced. In addition, the scientists found that in some subjects, an epigenetic modification altered the way the SKA2 gene functioned without changing the gene's underlying DNA sequence. This modification added chemicals called methyl groups to the gene, and higher levels of methylation were found in the same subjects who had committed suicide.

So how could you detect the mutation in blood samples? The scientists designed a blood test to detect methylation increases and then created a model to predict which participants were experiencing suicidal thoughts or had attempted suicide. They found that their model had about 80 percent certainty and that those with more severe risk of suicide were predicted with 90 percent accuracy.

"We have found a gene that we think could be really important for consistently identifying a range of behaviors from suicidal thoughts to attempts to completions," said Kaminsky. "We need to study this in a larger sample but we believe that we might be able to monitor the blood to identify those at risk of suicide."

The findings are published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.