2017 Articles

An Analysis Of Two Genome-wide Association Meta-analyses Identifies A New Locus For Broad Depression Phenotype

Direk, Nese; Williams, Stephanie; Smith, Jennifer A.; Ripke, Stephan; Air, Tracy; Amare, Azmeraw T.; Amin, Najaf; Baune, Bernhard T.; Bennett, David A.; Blackwood, Douglas H.R.; Boomsma, Dorret; Breen, Gerome; Buttenschøn, Henriette N.; Byrne, Enda M.; Børglum, Anders D.; Castelao, Enrique; Cichon, Sven; Clarke, Toni-Kim; Cornelis, Marilyn C.; Dannlowski, Udo; De Jager, Philip L.; Demirkan, Ayse; Domenici, Enrico; van Duijn, Cornelia M.; Dunn, Erin C.; Eriksson, Johan G.; Esko, Tonu; Faul, Jessica D.; Ferrucci, Luigi; Fornage, Myriam; de Geus, Eco; Gill, Michael; Gordon, Scott D.; Grabe, Hans Jörgen; Van Grootheest, Gerard; Hamilton, Steven P.; Hartman, Catharina A.; Heath, Andrew C.; Hek, Karin; Hofman, Albert; Homuth, Georg; Horn, Carsten; Jan Hottenga, Jouke; Kardia, Sharon L.R.; Kloiber, Stefan; Koenen, Karestan; Kutalik, Zoltán; Ladwig, Karl-Heinz; Lahti, Jari; Levinson, Douglas F.; Lewis, Cathryn M.; Lewis, Glyn; Li, Qingqin S.; Llewellyn, David J.; Lucae, Susanne; Lunetta, Kathryn L.; MacIntyre, Donald J.; Madden, Pamela; Martin, Nicholas G.; McIntosh, Andrew M.; Metspalu, Andres; Milaneschi, Yuri; Montgomery, Grant W.; Mors, Ole; Mosley, Thomas H.; Murabito, Joanne M.; Müller-Myhsok, Bertram; Nöthen, Markus M.; Nyholt, Dale R.; O’Donovan, Michael C.; Penninx, Brenda W.; Pergadia, Michele L.; Perlis, Roy; Potash, James B.; Preisig, Martin; Purcell, Shaun M.; Quiroz, Jorge A.; Räikkönen, Katri; Rice, John P.; Rietschel, Marcella; Rivera, Margarita; Schulze, Thomas G.; Shi, Jianxin; Shyn, Stanley; Sinnamon, Grant C.; Smit, Johannes H.; Smoller, Jordan W.; Snieder, Harold; Tanaka, Toshiko; Tansey, Katherine E.; Teumer, Alexander; Uher, Rudolf; Umbricht, Daniel; Van der Auwera, Sandra; Ware, Erin B.; Weir, David R; Weissman, Myrna M.; Willemsen, Gonneke; Yang, Jingyun; Zhao, Wei; Tiemeier, Henning; Sullivan, Patrick F.

BACKGROUND: The genetics of depression has been explored in genome-wide association studies that focused on either major depressive disorder or depressive symptoms with mostly negative findings. A broad depression phenotype including both phenotypes has not been tested previously using a genome-wide association approach. We aimed to identify genetic polymorphisms significantly associated with a broad phenotype from depressive symptoms to major depressive disorder. METHODS: We analyzed two prior studies of 70,017 participants of European ancestry from general and clinical populations in the discovery stage. We performed a replication meta-analysis of 28,328 participants. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based heritability and genetic correlations were calculated using linkage disequilibrium score regression. Discovery and replication analyses were performed using a p-value-based meta-analysis. Lifetime major depressive disorder and depressive symptom scores were used as the outcome measures. RESULTS: The SNP-based heritability of major depressive disorder was 0.21 (SE 5 0.02), the SNP-based heritability of depressive symptoms was 0.04 (SE 5 0.01), and their genetic correlation was 1.001 (SE 5 0.2). We found one genome-wide significant locus related to the broad depression phenotype (rs9825823, chromosome 3: 61,082,153, p 5 8.2 3 10–9) located in an intron of the FHIT gene. We replicated this SNP in independent samples (p 5 .02) and the overall meta-analysis of the discovery and replication cohorts (1.0 3 10–9). CONCLUSIONS: This large study identified a new locus for depression. Our results support a continuum between depressive symptoms and major depressive disorder. A phenotypically more inclusive approach may help to achieve the large sample sizes needed to detect susceptibility loci for depression.