scholarly journals Shared Genetic Risk between Eating Disorder- and Substance-Use-Related Phenotypes: Evidence from Genome-Wide Association Studies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Munn-Chernoff ◽  
Emma C. Johnson ◽  
Yi-Ling Chou ◽  
Jonathan R.I. Coleman ◽  
Laura M. Thornton ◽  
...  

AbstractEating disorders and substance use disorders frequently co-occur. Twin studies reveal shared genetic variance between liabilities to eating disorders and substance use, with the strongest associations between symptoms of bulimia nervosa (BN) and problem alcohol use (genetic correlation [rg], twin-based=0.23-0.53). We estimated the genetic correlation between eating disorder and substance use and disorder phenotypes using data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Four eating disorder phenotypes (anorexia nervosa [AN], AN with binge-eating, AN without binge-eating, and a BN factor score), and eight substance-use-related phenotypes (drinks per week, alcohol use disorder [AUD], smoking initiation, current smoking, cigarettes per day, nicotine dependence, cannabis initiation, and cannabis use disorder) from eight studies were included. Significant genetic correlations were adjusted for variants associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). Total sample sizes per phenotype ranged from ~2,400 to ~537,000 individuals. We used linkage disequilibrium score regression to calculate single nucleotide polymorphism-based genetic correlations between eating disorder and substance-use-related phenotypes. Significant positive genetic associations emerged between AUD and AN (rg=0.18; false discovery rate q=0.0006), cannabis initiation and AN (rg=0.23; q<0.0001), and cannabis initiation and AN with binge-eating (rg=0.27; q=0.0016). Conversely, significant negative genetic correlations were observed between three non-diagnostic smoking phenotypes (smoking initiation, current smoking, and cigarettes per day) and AN without binge-eating (rgs=-0.19 to −0.23; qs<0.04). The genetic correlation between AUD and AN was no longer significant after co-varying for MDD loci. The patterns of association between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes highlights the potentially complex and substance-specific relationships between these behaviors.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hübel ◽  
Mohamed Abdulkadir ◽  
Moritz Herle ◽  
Ruth J.F. Loos ◽  
Gerome Breen ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectiveGenome-wide association studies have identified multiple genomic regions associated with anorexia nervosa. Relatively few or no genome-wide studies of other eating disorders, such as bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, have been performed, despite their substantial heritability. Exploratively, we aimed to identify traits that are genetically associated with binge-type eating disorders.MethodWe calculated genome-wide polygenic scores for 269 trait and disease outcomes using PRSice v2.2 and their association with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder in up to 640 cases and 17,050 controls from the UK Biobank. Significant associations were tested for replication in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (up to 217 cases and 3018 controls).ResultsIndividuals with binge-type eating disorders had higher polygenic scores than controls for other psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and higher polygenic scores for body mass index.DiscussionOur findings replicate some of the known comorbidities of eating disorders on a genomic level and motivate a deeper investigation of shared and unique genomic factors across the three primary eating disorders.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanmin Guo ◽  
James J. Li ◽  
Qiongshi Lu ◽  
Lin Hou

AbstractGenetic correlation analysis has quickly gained popularity in the past few years and provided insights into the genetic etiology of numerous complex diseases. However, existing approaches oversimplify the shared genetic architecture between different phenotypes and cannot effectively identify precise genetic regions contributing to the genetic correlation. In this work, we introduce LOGODetect, a powerful and efficient statistical method to identify small genome segments harboring local genetic correlation signals. LOGODetect automatically identifies genetic regions showing consistent associations with multiple phenotypes through a scan statistic approach. It uses summary association statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) as input and is robust to sample overlap between studies. Applied to five phenotypically distinct but genetically correlated psychiatric disorders, we identified 49 non-overlapping genome regions associated with multiple disorders, including multiple hub regions showing concordant effects on more than two disorders. Our method addresses critical limitations in existing analytic strategies and may have wide applications in post-GWAS analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Munn‐Chernoff ◽  
Emma C. Johnson ◽  
Yi‐Ling Chou ◽  
Jonathan R.I. Coleman ◽  
Laura M. Thornton ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanmin Guo ◽  
James J. Li ◽  
Qiongshi Lu ◽  
Lin Hou

AbstractGenetic correlation analysis has quickly gained popularity in the past few years and provided insights into the genetic etiology of numerous complex diseases. However, existing approaches oversimplify the shared genetic architecture between different phenotypes and cannot effectively identify precise genetic regions contributing to the genetic correlation. In this work, we introduce LOGODetect, a powerful and efficient statistical method to identify small genome segments harboring local genetic correlation signals. LOGODetect automatically identifies genetic regions showing consistent associations with multiple phenotypes through a scan statistic approach. It uses summary association statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) as input and is robust to sample overlap between studies. Applied to seven phenotypically distinct but genetically correlated neuropsychiatric traits, we identify 227 non-overlapping genome regions associated with multiple traits, including multiple hub regions showing concordant effects on five or more traits. Our method addresses critical limitations in existing analytic strategies and may have wide applications in post-GWAS analysis.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seon-Kyeong Jang ◽  
Gretchen Saunders ◽  
MengZhen Liu ◽  
Yu Jiang ◽  
Dajiang J. Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Substance use occurs at a high rate in persons with a psychiatric disorder. Genetically informative studies have the potential to elucidate the etiology of these phenomena. Recent developments in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) allow new avenues of investigation. Method Using results of GWAS meta-analyses, we performed a factor analysis of the genetic correlation structure, a genome-wide search of shared loci, and causally informative tests for six substance use phenotypes (four smoking, one alcohol, and one cannabis use) and five psychiatric disorders (ADHD, anorexia, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia). Results Two correlated externalizing and internalizing/psychosis factor were found, although model fit was beneath conventional standards. Of 458 loci reported in previous univariate GWAS of substance use and psychiatric disorders, about 50% (230 loci) were pleiotropic with additional 111 pleiotropic loci not reported from past GWAS. Of the 341 pleiotropic loci, 152 were associated with both substance use and psychiatric disorders, implicating neurodevelopment, cell morphogenesis, biological adhesion pathways, and enrichment in 13 different brain tissues. Seventy-five and 114 pleiotropic loci were specific to either psychiatric disorders or substance use phenotypes, implicating neuronal signaling pathway and clathrin-binding functions/structures, respectively. No consistent evidence for phenotypic causation was found across different Mendelian randomization methods. Conclusions Genetic etiology of substance use and psychiatric disorders is highly pleiotropic and involves shared neurodevelopmental path, neurotransmission, and intracellular trafficking. In aggregate, the patterns are not consistent with vertical pleiotropy, more likely reflecting horizontal pleiotropy or more complex forms of phenotypic causation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (13) ◽  
pp. 2197-2205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah M. Sallis ◽  
George Davey Smith ◽  
Marcus R. Munafò

AbstractBackgroundDespite the well-documented association between smoking and personality traits such as neuroticism and extraversion, little is known about the potential causal nature of these findings. If it were possible to unpick the association between personality and smoking, it may be possible to develop tailored smoking interventions that could lead to both improved uptake and efficacy.MethodsRecent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified variants robustly associated with both smoking phenotypes and personality traits. Here we use publicly available GWAS summary statistics in addition to individual-level data from UK Biobank to investigate the link between smoking and personality. We first estimate genetic overlap between traits using LD score regression and then use bidirectional Mendelian randomisation methods to unpick the nature of this relationship.ResultsWe found clear evidence of a modest genetic correlation between smoking behaviours and both neuroticism and extraversion. We found some evidence that personality traits are causally linked to certain smoking phenotypes: among current smokers each additional neuroticism risk allele was associated with smoking an additional 0.07 cigarettes per day (95% CI 0.02–0.12, p = 0.009), and each additional extraversion effect allele was associated with an elevated odds of smoking initiation (OR 1.015, 95% CI 1.01–1.02, p = 9.6 × 10−7).ConclusionWe found some evidence for specific causal pathways from personality to smoking phenotypes, and weaker evidence of an association from smoking initiation to personality. These findings could be used to inform future smoking interventions or to tailor existing schemes.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorien L. Treur ◽  
Mark Gibson ◽  
Amy E Taylor ◽  
Peter J Rogers ◽  
Marcus R Munafò

AbstractStudy Objectives:Higher caffeine consumption has been linked to poorer sleep and insomnia complaints. We investigated whether these observational associations are the result of genetic risk factors influencing both caffeine consumption and poorer sleep, and/or whether they reflect (possibly bidirectional) causal effects.Methods:Summary-level data were available from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on caffeine consumption (n=91,462), sleep duration, and chronotype (i.e., being a ‘morning’ versus an ‘evening’ person) (both n=128,266), and insomnia complaints (n=113,006). Linkage disequilibrium (LD) score regression was used to calculate genetic correlations, reflecting the extent to which genetic variants influencing caffeine consumption and sleep behaviours overlap. Causal effects were tested with bidirectional, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR), an instrumental variable approach that utilizes genetic variants robustly associated with an exposure variable as an instrument to test causal effects. Estimates from individual genetic variants were combined using inverse-variance weighted meta-analysis, weighted median regression and MR Egger regression methods.Results:There was no clear evidence for genetic correlation between caffeine consumption and sleep duration (rg=0.000,p=0.998), chronotype (rg=0.086,p=0.192) or insomnia (rg=-0.034,p=0.700). Two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses did not support causal effects from caffeine consumption to sleep behaviours, or the other way around.Conclusions:We found no evidence in support of genetic correlation or causal effects between caffeine consumption and sleep. While caffeine may have acute effects on sleep when taken shortly before habitual bedtime, our findings suggest that a more sustained pattern of high caffeine consumption is likely associated with poorer sleep through shared environmental factors.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary F Gerring ◽  
Jackson G Thorp ◽  
Eric R Gamazon ◽  
Eske M Derks

ABSTRACTGenome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified thousands of risk loci for many psychiatric and substance use phenotypes, however the biological consequences of these loci remain largely unknown. We performed a transcriptome-wide association study of 10 psychiatric disorders and 6 substance use phenotypes (collectively termed “mental health phenotypes”) using expression quantitative trait loci data from 532 prefrontal cortex samples. We estimated the correlation due to predicted genetically regulated expression between pairs of mental health phenotypes, and compared the results with the genetic correlations. We identified 1,645 genes with at least one significant trait association, comprising 2,176 significant associations across the 16 mental health phenotypes of which 572 (26%) are novel. Overall, the transcriptomic correlations for phenotype pairs were significantly higher than the respective genetic correlations. For example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder, both childhood developmental disorders, showed a much higher transcriptomic correlation (r=0.84) than genetic correlation (r=0.35). Finally, we tested the enrichment of phenotype-associated genes in gene co-expression networks built from prefrontal cortex. Phenotype-associated genes were enriched in multiple gene co-expression modules and the implicated modules contained genes involved in mRNA splicing and glutamatergic receptors, among others. Together, our results highlight the utility of gene expression data in the understanding of functional gene mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders and substance use phenotypes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaud S Boutin ◽  
David G Charteris ◽  
Aman Chandra ◽  
Susan Campbell ◽  
Caroline Hayward ◽  
...  

Abstract Retinal detachment (RD) is a serious and common condition, but genetic studies to date have been hampered by the small size of the assembled cohorts. In the UK Biobank data set, where RD was ascertained by self-report or hospital records, genetic correlations between RD and high myopia or cataract operation were, respectively, 0.46 (SE = 0.08) and 0.44 (SE = 0.07). These correlations are consistent with known epidemiological associations. Through meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies using UK Biobank RD cases (N = 3 977) and two cohorts, each comprising ~1 000 clinically ascertained rhegmatogenous RD patients, we uncovered 11 genome-wide significant association signals. These are near or within ZC3H11B, BMP3, COL22A1, DLG5, PLCE1, EFEMP2, TYR, FAT3, TRIM29, COL2A1 and LOXL1. Replication in the 23andMe data set, where RD is self-reported by participants, firmly establishes six RD risk loci: FAT3, COL22A1, TYR, BMP3, ZC3H11B and PLCE1. Based on the genetic associations with eye traits described to date, the first two specifically impact risk of a RD, whereas the last four point to shared aetiologies with macular condition, myopia and glaucoma. Fine-mapping prioritized the lead common missense variant (TYR S192Y) as causal variant at the TYR locus and a small set of credible causal variants at the FAT3 locus. The larger study size presented here, enabled by resources linked to health records or self-report, provides novel insights into RD aetiology and underlying pathological pathways.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 733-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
M G Nivard ◽  
◽  
K J H Verweij ◽  
C C Minică ◽  
J L Treur ◽  
...  

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