Abstract
Molecular diagnostic tools that can robustly and quantitatively measure the response to traumatic stress would be of considerable value in assessing the individual risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder or stress-induced depression following stress exposure. The gene regulatory network can integrate and encode a large number of different signals, including those elicited by exposure to stress. We find that many genes respond to at least one modality of stress but only a subset of stress-sensitive genes track stress exposure across multiple stress modalities and are thus universal markers of stress exposure. A sensitive and robust measure of stress exposure can be constructed using a small number of genes selected from this modality-independent set of stress-sensitive genes. This stress-sensitive gene expression (SSGE) index can detect chronic traumatic stress exposure in a wide range of different stress models in a manner that is relatively independent of the modality of stress exposure and that parallels the intensity of stress exposure in a dose-dependent manner.
