1. Influences on and prevention of self-harm behavior among the most at-risk adolescents : study protocol for the SH-MARA prospective longitudinal cohort studyLana Sernec Podnar, Petra Tomažič, Anja Tomašević Kramer, Barbara Plemeniti Tololeski, Gorjan Tasevski, Žiga Rosenstein, Simona Klemenčič, Tadej Battelino, Blaž Vrhovšek, Tadej Lahovnik, Jernej Kovač, Carla Sharp, Barbara Jenko Bizjan, Sašo Karakatič, Maja Drobnič Radobuljac, 2025, original scientific article Abstract: Background Both suicidal and non-suicidal self-injuring behaviors (NSSI) are common during adolescence In Slovenia, adolescent suicide rates are high, making suicide the leading cause of death in the year 2022 in this age group. These behaviors are influenced by a complex interplay of environmental, psychological, and genetic factors. Previous research has identified risk and protective factors mainly for suicidal behavior in adults, a notable gap in understanding these factors in adolescents remains, especially for NSSI. Notably there is an important lack of effective clinical tools or psychometric assessment methods to reliably assess the risk for either suicidal or NSSI behaviors in acutely hospitalized adolescents. Methods and analysis The proposed study uses a mixed-method observational design consisting of a prospective longitudinal cohort component involving adolescents hospitalized for high risk of DSH, and a cross-sectional comparison with a control group of healthy adolescents recruited from primary care settings. It is aimed at identifying genetic, psychosocial, and clinical factors associated with suicidal behaviors and NSSI in adolescents. The study group is recruited from adolescents aged 12–19, admitted to the Intensive Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit in Ljubljana due to severe self-harm risk. Exclusion criteria include involuntary treatment, acute psychotic disorders, intellectual disability, severe physical or central nervous system illnesses and acute intoxication. The control group comprises adolescents of comparable age, recruited through regular scheduled health check-ups in Slovenia. Exclusion criteria include suicidality, severe mental disorder, a history of self-harm behavior in a first-degree relative, intellectual disability, severe physical or central nervous system illnesses and acute intoxication. Enrollment runs from February 1, 2023, to December 31, 2025. Participation is voluntary, requiring parental or guardian consent for those 14 or younger
Keywords: adolescents, deliberate self-harm, non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal behavior, intensive psychiatry, personality disorder, traumatic experience, genetics, epigenetics
Published in DKUM: 17.10.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 2
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2. Influence of temperature on epigenetic changes of common duckweed (Lemna minor L.) in aseptic cultureStella Prelovšek, 2018, master's thesis Abstract: Epigenetics is a study of heritable changes in gene expression and function that do not change the DNA sequence itself. One of the commonly described epigenetic modifications is DNA methylation where a methyl group is added to the fifth carbon of the cytosine (Lim & Maher, 2010). This may lead to gene silencing, regulation of gene expression and allows for plant plasticity to changing environment (Verhoeven et al., 2010). Epigenetic variation is often studied in species with asexual reproduction, due to the absence of genetic variation between individuals and because clonal species do not go through a germline and meiosis between generations which epigenetic resetting occurs. Lemna minor, also known as common duckweed, is the smallest flowering macrophyte that consist of modified leaf structures (fronds) and one hanging root. It is known for its rapid asexual reproduction (Ziegler et al., 2015). Daughter fronds are genetically identical to the mother plant and are produced without involvement of male or female germlines. Fast asexual reproduction makes Lemna minor a perfect candidate to study epigenetic effects of de novo gene regulatory evolution. The aim of this project is to screen divergence of environmentally-induced DNA methylation between different experimental treatments over multiple generations. The aim of this project is to screen divergence of temperature-induced DNA methylation between different experimental treatments over multiple generations. Results show that, temperature stress has a strong influence on L. minor growth and reproduction, and induces significant change in the DNA methylation in the CG and CHG methylation context. Temperature-induced DNA methylation was inherited over multiple clonal generation of L. minor in the CHG contexts, although since we did not detect any performance difference the functional consequences of this DNA methylation are unclear. This study contributes to the knowledge of environmentally-induced DNA methylation changes, which is essential regarding the increasing frequency of global climate changes.
Keywords: DNA methylation, duckweed, epigenetics, epiGBS, abiotic stress, transgenerational inheritance, asexual reproduction
Published in DKUM: 29.01.2019; Views: 1731; Downloads: 140
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