AUTHOR=Seneviratne Chamindi , Johnson Bankole A. TITLE=Serotonin Transporter Genomic Biomarker for Quantitative Assessment of Ondansetron Treatment Response in Alcoholics JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry VOLUME=3 YEAR=2012 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00023 DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00023 ISSN=1664-0640 ABSTRACT=
Paucity of sensitive biomarkers to quantify transient changes in alcohol consumption level remains a critical barrier for the development of efficacious therapeutic agents to treat alcoholism. Recently, in an 11-week, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of 283 alcohol-dependent individuals, we demonstrated that ondansetron was efficacious at reducing the severity of drinking (measured as drinks per drinking day; DDD) in alcoholics carrying the LL compared with the LS/SS genotype of the serotonin transporter gene, 5′-HTTLPR. Using peripheral blood samples from a cohort of 41 of these subjects, we determined whether there was a relationship between mRNA expression level of the 5′-HTTLPR genotypes (measured at weeks 0, 4, and 11) and self-reported alcohol consumption following treatment with either ondansetron (4 μg/kg twice daily;