Shared genetic etiology between alcohol dependence and major depressive disorder



Foo, Jerome C, Streit, Fabian, Treutlein, Jens, Ripke, Stephan, Witt, Stephanie H, Strohmaier, Jana, Degenhardt, Franziska, Forstner, Andreas J, Hoffmann, Per, Soyka, Michael
et al (show 21 more authors) (2018) Shared genetic etiology between alcohol dependence and major depressive disorder. PSYCHIATRIC GENETICS, 28 (4). pp. 66-70.

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Abstract

The clinical comorbidity of alcohol dependence (AD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) is well established, whereas genetic factors influencing co-occurrence remain unclear. A recent study using polygenic risk scores (PRS) calculated based on the first-wave Psychiatric Genomics Consortium MDD meta-analysis (PGC-MDD1) suggests a modest shared genetic contribution to MDD and AD. Using a (~10 fold) larger discovery sample, we calculated PRS based on the second wave (PGC-MDD2) of results, in a severe AD case–control target sample. We found significant associations between AD disease status and MDD-PRS derived from both PGC-MDD2 (most informative P-threshold=1.0, P=0.00063, R2=0.533%) and PGC-MDD1 (P-threshold=0.2, P=0.00014, R2=0.663%) meta-analyses; the larger discovery sample did not yield additional predictive power. In contrast, calculating PRS in a MDD target sample yielded increased power when using PGC-MDD2 (P-threshold=1.0, P=0.000038, R2=1.34%) versus PGC-MDD1 (P-threshold=1.0, P=0.0013, R2=0.81%). Furthermore, when calculating PGC-MDD2 PRS in a subsample of patients with AD recruited explicitly excluding comorbid MDD, significant associations were still found (n=331; P-threshold=1.0, P=0.042, R2=0.398%). Meanwhile, in the subset of patients in which MDD was not the explicit exclusion criteria, PRS predicted more variance (n=999; P-threshold=1.0, P=0.0003, R2=0.693%). Our findings replicate the reported genetic overlap between AD and MDD and also suggest the need for improved, rigorous phenotyping to identify true shared cross-disorder genetic factors. Larger target samples are needed to reduce noise and take advantage of increasing discovery sample size.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: alcohol dependence, disease comorbidity, genome-wide association studies, major depressive disorder, polygenic risk scores, psychiatric genomics consortium
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 08 Jan 2019 15:29
Last Modified: 16 Mar 2024 23:35
DOI: 10.1097/YPG.0000000000000201
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3030548