BALTIMORE, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A U.S. study has found evidence a genetic tendency toward suicide has been linked with a particular area of the genome on chromosome 2.
The same area has been implicated in two other recent studies of attempted suicide.
"We're hoping our findings will eventually lead to tests that can identify those at high risk for attempting suicide," said Virginia Willour, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine assistant professor and lead author of the study.
The investigators conducted a family linkage study in which they searched for commonalities in the genomes of family members with bipolar disorder and a history of attempted suicide. The same gene region on chromosome 2 that was identified by the bipolar disorder and attempted suicide study was recently identified by two complementary family studies that looked at attempted suicide in families with major depression and alcohol dependence.
The multi-institutional study, which included researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Chicago, the National Institute of Mental Health and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, appears in the March issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.
