A phenome-wide association and Mendelian Randomisation study of polygenic risk for depression in UK Biobank
Xueyi Shen, David M. Howard, Mark J. Adams, W. David Hill, Toni-Kim Clarke, Mark J. Adams, Toni‐Kim Clarke, Andrew M. McIntosh, Ian J. Deary, Naomi R. Wray, Stephan Ripke, Manuel Mattheisen, Maciej Trzaskowski, Enda M. Byrne, Abdel Abdellaoui, Esben Agerbo, Tracy Air, Till F. M. Andlauer, Silviu‐Alin Bacanu, Marie Bækvad‐Hansen, Aartjan T.F. Beekman, Tim B. Bigdeli, Elisabeth B. Binder, Julien Bryois, Henriette N. Buttenschøn, Jonas Bybjerg‐Grauholm, Na Cai, Enrique Castelao, Jane Christensen, Jonathan R. I. Coleman, Lucía Colodro‐Conde, Baptiste Couvy‐Duchesne, Nick Craddock, Gregory E. Crawford, Gail Davies, Franziska Degenhardt, Eske M. Derks, Neşe Direk, Conor V. Dolan, Erin C. Dunn, Thalia C. Eley, Valentina Escott‐Price, Farnush Farhadi Hassan Kiadeh, Hilary K. Finucane, Jerome C. Foo, Andreas J. Forstner, Josef Frank, Helena Gaspar, Michael Gill, Fernando S. Goes, Scott D. Gordon, Jakob Grove, Lynsey S. Hall, Christine Søholm Hansen, Thomas Folkmann Hansen, Stefan Herms, Ian B. Hickie, Per Hoffmann, Georg Homuth, Carsten Horn, Jouke‐Jan Hottenga, David M. Hougaard, David M. Howard, Marcus Ising, Rick Jansen, Ian Jones, Lisa Jones, Eric Jorgenson, James A. Knowles, Isaac S. Kohane, Julia Kraft, Warren W. Kretzschmar, Zoltán Kutalik, Yihan Li, Penelope A. Lind, Donald J. MacIntyre, Dean F. MacKinnon, Robert Maier, Wolfgang Maier, Jonathan Marchini, Hamdi Mbarek, Patrick J. McGrath, Peter McGuffin, Sarah E. Medland, Divya Mehta, Christel M. Middeldorp, Evelin Mihailov, Yuri Milaneschi, Lili Milani, Francis M. Mondimore, Grant W. Montgomery, Sara Mostafavi, Niamh Mullins, Matthias Nauck, Bernard Ng, Michel G. Nivard, Dale R. Nyholt, Paul F. O’Reilly, Högni Óskarsson, Michael J. Owen
Abstract
Abstract Depression is a leading cause of worldwide disability but there remains considerable uncertainty regarding its neural and behavioural associations. Here, using non-overlapping Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) datasets as a reference, we estimate polygenic risk scores for depression (depression-PRS) in a discovery ( N = 10,674) and replication ( N = 11,214) imaging sample from UK Biobank. We report 77 traits that are significantly associated with depression-PRS, in both discovery and replication analyses. Mendelian Randomisation analysis supports a potential causal effect of liability to depression on brain white matter microstructure ( β : 0.125 to 0.868, p FDR < 0.043). Several behavioural traits are also associated with depression-PRS ( β : 0.014 to 0.180, p FDR : 0.049 to 1.28 × 10 −14 ) and we find a significant and positive interaction between depression-PRS and adverse environmental exposures on mental health outcomes. This study reveals replicable associations between depression-PRS and white matter microstructure. Our results indicate that white matter microstructure differences may be a causal consequence of liability to depression.