Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science (Apr 2022)

Identifying the Common Genetic Basis of Antidepressant Response

  • Oliver Pain,
  • Karen Hodgson,
  • Vassily Trubetskoy,
  • Stephan Ripke,
  • Victoria S. Marshe,
  • Mark J. Adams,
  • Enda M. Byrne,
  • Adrian I. Campos,
  • Tania Carrillo-Roa,
  • Annamaria Cattaneo,
  • Thomas D. Als,
  • Daniel Souery,
  • Mojca Z. Dernovsek,
  • Chiara Fabbri,
  • Caroline Hayward,
  • Neven Henigsberg,
  • Joanna Hauser,
  • James L. Kennedy,
  • Eric J. Lenze,
  • Glyn Lewis,
  • Daniel J. Müller,
  • Nicholas G. Martin,
  • Benoit H. Mulsant,
  • Ole Mors,
  • Nader Perroud,
  • David J. Porteous,
  • Miguel E. Rentería,
  • Charles F. Reynolds, III,
  • Marcella Rietschel,
  • Rudolf Uher,
  • Eleanor M. Wigmore,
  • Wolfgang Maier,
  • Naomi R. Wray,
  • Katherine J. Aitchison,
  • Volker Arolt,
  • Bernhard T. Baune,
  • Joanna M. Biernacka,
  • Guido Bondolfi,
  • Katharina Domschke,
  • Masaki Kato,
  • Qingqin S. Li,
  • Yu-Li Liu,
  • Alessandro Serretti,
  • Shih-Jen Tsai,
  • Gustavo Turecki,
  • Richard Weinshilboum,
  • Andrew M. McIntosh,
  • Cathryn M. Lewis,
  • Siegfried Kasper,
  • Joseph Zohar,
  • Daniel Souery,
  • Stuart Montgomery,
  • Diego Albani,
  • Gianluigi Forloni,
  • Panagiotis Ferentinos,
  • Dan Rujescu,
  • Julien Mendlewicz,
  • Naomi R. Wray,
  • Stephan Ripke,
  • Manuel Mattheisen,
  • Maciej Trzaskowski,
  • Enda M. Byrne,
  • Abdel Abdellaoui,
  • Mark J. Adams,
  • Esben Agerbo,
  • Tracy M. 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 Hvarregaard Christensen,
  • Toni-Kim Clarke,
  • Jonathan R.I. Coleman,
  • Lucía Colodro-Conde,
  • Baptiste Couvy-Duchesne,
  • Nick Craddock,
  • Gregory E. Crawford,
  • Gail Davies,
  • Ian J. Deary,
  • Franziska Degenhardt,
  • Eske M. Derks,
  • Nese 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,
  • Héléna A. Gaspar,
  • Michael Gill,
  • Fernando S. Goes,
  • Scott D. Gordon,
  • Jakob Grove,
  • Lynsey S. Hall,
  • Christine Søholm Hansen,
  • Thomas F. 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 A. 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 M. Maier,
  • Wolfgang Maier,
  • Jonathan Marchini,
  • Hamdi Mbarek,
  • Patrick 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,
  • Hogni Oskarsson,
  • Michael J. Owen,
  • Jodie N. Painter,
  • Carsten Bøcker Pedersen,
  • Marianne Giørtz Pedersen,
  • Roseann E. Peterson,
  • Wouter J. Peyrot,
  • Giorgio Pistis,
  • Danielle Posthuma,
  • Jorge A. Quiroz,
  • Per Qvist,
  • John P. Rice,
  • Brien P. Riley,
  • Margarita Rivera,
  • Saira Saeed Mirza,
  • Robert Schoevers,
  • Eva C. Schulte,
  • Ling Shen,
  • Jianxin Shi,
  • Stanley I. Shyn,
  • Engilbert Sigurdsson,
  • Grant C.B. Sinnamon,
  • Johannes H. Smit,
  • Daniel J. Smith,
  • Hreinn Stefansson,
  • Stacy Steinberg,
  • Fabian Streit,
  • Jana Strohmaier,
  • Katherine E. Tansey,
  • Henning Teismann,
  • Alexander Teumer,
  • Wesley Thompson,
  • Pippa A. Thomson,
  • Thorgeir E. Thorgeirsson,
  • Matthew Traylor,
  • Jens Treutlein,
  • Vassily Trubetskoy,
  • André G. Uitterlinden,
  • Daniel Umbricht,
  • Sandra Van der Auwera,
  • Albert M. van Hemert,
  • Alexander Viktorin,
  • Peter M. Visscher,
  • Yunpeng Wang,
  • Bradley T. Webb,
  • Shantel Marie Weinsheimer,
  • Jürgen Wellmann,
  • Gonneke Willemsen,
  • Stephanie H. Witt,
  • Yang Wu,
  • Hualin S. Xi,
  • Jian Yang,
  • Futao Zhang,
  • Volker Arolt,
  • Bernhard T. Baune,
  • Klaus Berger,
  • Dorret I. Boomsma,
  • Sven Cichon,
  • Udo Dannlowski,
  • E.J.C. de Geus,
  • J. Raymond DePaulo,
  • Enrico Domenici,
  • Katharina Domschke,
  • Tõnu Esko,
  • Hans J. Grabe,
  • Steven P. Hamilton,
  • Caroline Hayward,
  • Andrew C. Heath,
  • Kenneth S. Kendler,
  • Stefan Kloiber,
  • Glyn Lewis,
  • Qingqin S. Li,
  • Susanne Lucae,
  • Pamela A.F. Madden,
  • Patrik K. Magnusson,
  • Nicholas G. Martin,
  • Andrew M. McIntosh,
  • Andres Metspalu,
  • Ole Mors,
  • Preben Bo Mortensen,
  • Bertram Müller-Myhsok,
  • Merete Nordentoft,
  • Markus M. Nöthen,
  • Michael C. O’Donovan,
  • Sara A. Paciga,
  • Nancy L. Pedersen,
  • Brenda W.J.H. Penninx,
  • Roy H. Perlis,
  • David J. Porteous,
  • James B. Potash,
  • Martin Preisig,
  • Marcella Rietschel,
  • Catherine Schaefer,
  • Thomas G. Schulze,
  • Jordan W. Smoller,
  • Kari Stefansson,
  • Henning Tiemeier,
  • Rudolf Uher,
  • Henry Völzke,
  • Myrna M. Weissman,
  • Thomas Werge,
  • Cathryn M. Lewis,
  • Douglas F. Levinson,
  • Gerome Breen,
  • Anders D. Børglum,
  • Patrick F. Sullivan

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 2
pp. 115 – 126

Abstract

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Background: Antidepressants are a first-line treatment for depression. However, only a third of individuals experience remission after the first treatment. Common genetic variation, in part, likely regulates antidepressant response, yet the success of previous genome-wide association studies has been limited by sample size. This study performs the largest genetic analysis of prospectively assessed antidepressant response in major depressive disorder to gain insight into the underlying biology and enable out-of-sample prediction. Methods: Genome-wide analysis of remission (nremit = 1852, nnonremit = 3299) and percentage improvement (n = 5218) was performed. Single nucleotide polymorphism–based heritability was estimated using genome-wide complex trait analysis. Genetic covariance with eight mental health phenotypes was estimated using polygenic scores/AVENGEME. Out-of-sample prediction of antidepressant response polygenic scores was assessed. Gene-level association analysis was performed using MAGMA and transcriptome-wide association study. Tissue, pathway, and drug binding enrichment were estimated using MAGMA. Results: Neither genome-wide association study identified genome-wide significant associations. Single nucleotide polymorphism–based heritability was significantly different from zero for remission (h2 = 0.132, SE = 0.056) but not for percentage improvement (h2 = −0.018, SE = 0.032). Better antidepressant response was negatively associated with genetic risk for schizophrenia and positively associated with genetic propensity for educational attainment. Leave-one-out validation of antidepressant response polygenic scores demonstrated significant evidence of out-of-sample prediction, though results varied in external cohorts. Gene-based analyses identified ETV4 and DHX8 as significantly associated with antidepressant response. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that antidepressant response is influenced by common genetic variation, has a genetic overlap schizophrenia and educational attainment, and provides a useful resource for future research. Larger sample sizes are required to attain the potential of genetics for understanding and predicting antidepressant response.

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