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Elsevier, Biological Psychiatry

DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2016.11.013

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An Analysis of Two Genome-Wide Association Meta-Analyses Identifies a New Locus for Broad Depression Phenotype

Journal article published in 2016 by Sandra Van der Auwera, Nese Direk, Stephanie Williams ORCID, Jennifer A. Smith ORCID, Stephan Ripke, Tracy Air ORCID, Anders D. Borglum, Azmeraw T. Amare ORCID, Najaf Amin, Bernhard T. Baune, David A. Bennett, Douglas Hr R. Blackwood, Dorret Boomsma, Gerome Breen, Henriette N. Buttenschøn and other authors.
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

AbstractBackground The genetics of depression has been explored in genome-wide association studies that focused on 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 analysed 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. SNP-based heritability and genetic correlations were calculated using LD 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=0.02), the SNP-based heritability of depressive symptoms was 0.04 (SE=0.01), and their genetic correlation was 1.001 (SE=0.2). We found one genome-wide significant locus related to the broad depression phenotype (rs9825823, chromosome 3: 61,082,153, P=8.2x10-9) located in an intron of the FHIT gene. We replicated this SNP in independent samples (P= 0.02) and the overall meta analysis of the discovery and replication cohorts (1.0x10-9). 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 achieve the large sample sizes needed to detect susceptibility loci for depression.