The Turecki Lab - McGill Group for Suicide Studies – Group McGill d’études sur le suicide

Principal Investigator: Gustavo Turecki, MD, PhD

Research Areas

Clinical phenotypes associated with suicidal behaviour
Molecular changes associated with early-life adversity, mood disorders and their comorbidities, and suicide
- DNA modifications
- Histone modifications
- Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs; lncRNAs, miRNAs, etc.)
- Polyamines
- Inflammatory markers
Biomarkers of major depressive disorder treatment response or relapse and suicidal events
- Molecular biomarkers
- Neural correlates
Gene expression studies

Suicide Brain Banking

Contributions to the Suicide section of the Douglas-Bell Canada Brain Bank

Key publications

McGowan, P; Sasaki, A; D’Alessio, ACD; Dymov, S; Labonté, B; Szyf, M; Turecki, G; Meaney, M (2009). “Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse”. Nat Neurosci. 12 (3): 342–8. doi:10.1038/nn.2270. PMC 2944040. PMID 19234457.
Labonté, B; Suderman, M; Maussion, G; Lopez, JP; Navarro-Sánchez, L; Yerko, V; Mechawar, N; Szyf, M; Meaney, MJ; Turecki, G (2013). “Genome-wide methylation changes in the brains of suicide completers”. Am J Psychiatry. 170 (5): 511–20. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050627. PMID 23511308.
Nagy, C; Suderman, M; Yang, J; Szyf, M; Mechawar, N; Ernst, C; Turecki, G (2014). “Astrocytic abnormalities and global DNA methylation patterns in depression and suicide”. Mol Psychiatry. 20 (3): 320–328. doi:10.1038/mp.2014.21. PMC 5293540. PMID 24662927.
Lopez, JP; Lim, R; Cruceanu, C; Crapper, L; Fasano, C; Labonte, B; Maussion, G; Yang, JP; Yerko, V; Vigneault, E; El Mestikawy, S; Mechawar, N; Pavlidis, P; Turecki, G (2014). “miR-1202 is a primate-specific and brain-enriched microRNA involved in major depression and antidepressant treatment”. Nat Med. 20 (7): 764–8. doi:10.1038/nm.3582. PMC 4087015. PMID 24908571.
Turecki, G (2014). “The molecular bases of the suicidal brain”. Nat Rev Neurosci. 15 (12): 802–16. doi:10.1038/nrn3839. PMC 5293539. PMID 25354482.
Turecki, G; Brent, DA (2016). “Suicide and suicidal behaviour”. Lancet. 387 (10024): 1227–39. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00234-2. PMC 5319859. PMID 26385066.
Lopez, JP; Fiori, LM; Cruceanu, C; Lin, R; Labonté, B; Cates, HM; Heller, EA; Vialou, V; Ku, SM; Gerald, C; Han, MH; Foster, J; Frey, BN; Soares, CN; Müller, DJ; Farzan, F; Leri, F; MacQueen, GM; Feilotter, H; Tyryshkin, K; Evans, KR; Giacobbe, P; Blier, P; Lam, RW; Milev, R; Parikh, SV; Rotzinger, S; Strother, SC; Lewis, CM; Aitchison, KJ; Wittenberg, GM; Mechawar, N; Nestler, EJ; Uher, R; Kennedy, SH; Turecki, G (2017). “MicroRNAs 146a/b-5 and 425-3p and 24-3p are markers of antidepressant response and regulate MAPK/Wnt-system genes”. Nat Commun. 8: 15497. doi:10.1038/ncomms15497. PMC 5477510. PMID 28530238.
Belzeaux, R; Gorgievski, V; Fiori, L; Lopez, JP; Grenier, J; Lin, R; Nagy, C; Ibrahim, EC; Gascon, E; Courtet, P; Richard-Devantoy, S; Berlim, M; Chachamovich, E; Theroux, J-F; Dumas, S; Giros, B; Rotzinger, S; Soares, C; Foster, J; Mechawar, N; Tall, G; Tzavara, E; Kennedy, SH; Turecki, G (2020). “GPR56/ADGRG1 is associated with response to antidepressant treatment”. Nat Commun. 11: 1635. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15423-5. PMID 32242018.
Turecki, G; Brent, DA; Gunnell, D; O’Connor, RC; Oquendo, MA; Pirkis, J; Stanley, BH (2019). “Suicide and suicide risk”. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 5 (1): 74. doi:10.1038/s41572-019-0121-0. PMID 31649257.
Labonté, B; Abdallah, K; Maussion, G; Yerko, V; Yang, J; Bittar, T; Quessy, F; Golden, SA; Navarro, L; Checknita, D; Gigek, C; Lopez, JP; Neve, RL; Russo, SJ; Tremblay, RE; Côté, G; Meaney, MJ; Mechawar, N; Nestler, EJ; Turecki, G (2020). “Regulation of impulsive and aggressive behaviours by a novel lncRNA”. Mol Psychiatry. doi:10.1038/s41380-019-0637-4. PMID 31907380.