Alireza Pahlavi, the younger son of the late Shah of Iran, committed suicide on Tuesday in Boston, according to a note on his brother's website.

"It is with immense grief that we would like to inform our compatriots of the passing away of Prince Alireza Pahlavi," Reza Pahlavi, the Shah's older son, said on his website.

Pahlavi, 44, took his life early on Tuesday at his Boston home "plunging his family and friends into great sorrow," the note said.

It said he struggled for years to overcome depression over the fate of his country and the loss of his father and sister.

Police in Boston and Cambridge, where Pahlavi was reportedly studying for a PhD at Harvard University in ancient Iranian studies, could not immediately confirm the death. A Harvard spokesman said he had no information on Pahlavi.

The Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and died in Egypt a year later. His daughter Leila was found dead in a London hotel room in 2001.

Born in Tehran in 1966, Alireza Pahlavi attended schools in Iran before traveling in 1979 to the United States, where he obtained degrees at Princeton and Columbia universities.