Molecular Genetic Analysis Subdivided by Adversity Exposure Suggests Etiologic Heterogeneity in Major Depression
Year: 2018
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: OBJECTIVE: The extent to which major depression is the outcome of a single biological mechanism or represents a final common pathway of multiple disease processes remains uncertain. Genetic approaches can potentially identify etiologic heterogeneity in major depression by classifying patients on the basis of their experience of major adverse events. METHOD: Data are from the China, Oxford, and VCU Experimental Research on Genetic Epidemiology (CONVERGE) project, a study of Han Chinese women with recurrent major depression aimed at identifying genetic risk factors for major depression in a rigorously ascertained cohort carefully assessed for key environmental risk factors (N=9,599). To detect etiologic heterogeneity, genome-wide association studies, heritability analyses, and gene-by-environment interaction analyses were performed. RESULTS: Genome-wide association studies stratified by exposure to adversity revealed three novel loci associated with major depression only in study participants with no history of adversity. Significant gene-by-environment interactions were seen between adversity and genotype at all three loci, and 13.2% of major depression liability can be attributed to genome-wide interaction with adversity exposure. The genetic risk in major depression for participants who reported major adverse life events (27%) was partially shared with that in participants who did not (73%; genetic correlation=+0.64). Together with results from simulation studies, these findings suggest etiologic heterogeneity within major depression as a function of environmental exposures. CONCLUSIONS: The genetic contributions to major depression may differ between women with and those without major adverse life events. These results have implications for the molecular dissection of major depression and other complex psychiatric and biomedical diseases.
Source: American Journal of Psychiatry
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: Virginia Commonwealth University, Wellcome Trust, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Mental Health, National Human Genome Research Institute
Awards: Genetic influences on developmental heterogeneity of alcohol use disorder, G1760073678, Richer Models of Asthma Risk: Bridging the Environment-Genetics Divide, Using novel eQTL-based methods to find the molecular causes of alcohol dependency, G3184623515, G3718273168, Leveraging functional data to predict disease risk in multi-ethnic populations, G5838218231, The Molecular Genetics of Recurrent Major Depression in Chinese Women, G731339432, G8174585780, Using genetic overlap to dissect the genetic architecture of psychiatric diseases, G8708798000, G9000105327, ResearchTraining: Psychiatric and Statistical Genetics
OpenAlex ID: W2791205736