: Return 1834

Notes

In this study we selected several genetic markers that most strongly underlie risk for ADHD and tested if they showed an overlap with other traits and disorders that often co-occur with ADHD. We found that some of the genetic risk factors were shared between ADHD and co-occurring conditions in the general population, specifically atypical cognitive functioning, higher body mass index, neurotic behaviour, anxiety, depression, risk-taking behaviour, smoking and alcohol use. Our study findings suggest that genes do, at least to some extent, explain the overlap between ADHD and co-occurring conditions. These genetic factors contribute to cognitive functioning, body mass index, mood symptoms and substance use in the general population.

Application 18177

Multi-trait GWAS analyses in the UK Biobank

GWAS methods have been developed to analyse associations between SNPs and multiple phenotypes jointly. We have produced one such method (MultiPhen) and performed a simulation study finding that multivariate analyses can double the discovery of trait associated genetic variation compared with univariate analyses. Multi-trait analyses, such as polygenic risk scores, offer insights into shared and distinct aetiology among different phenotypes, such as ADHD, autism, schizophrenia, eating disorders and obesity. We will perform single and multi-trait analyses on the UK Biobank to boost discovery power of causal genetic variants, identify shared aetiology among phenotypes, and evaluate method performance on real data. Identifying shared genetic risk between physical and psychiatric phenotypes, in particular, could shed light on the aetiology of psychiatric disorders (which our group focuses on). Joint analysis of multiple traits may lead to substantially greater identification of novel genotype-phenotype associations and provide insights into the biological network underlying correlated phenotypes. Exposing the genetics responsible for comorbidity between phenotypes could also uncover possibilities for drug repositioning. By evaluating method performance we may find whether power is optimised by performing such analyses on clinically related phenotypes, those that are most highly correlated, or on sets of phenotypes with heterogeneous correlation structure. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyses will be performed on subsets of the UK Biobank phenotypes, allowing some traits to be analysed jointly for the first time. We will use several statistical approaches to investigate patterns of shared and distinct genetic risk between and within psychiatric and physical traits. We will use 'polygenic risk scoring' and 'linkage disequilibrium score regression' analyses software to infer genetic overlap and estimate genetic correlations between different phenotypes and outcomes, using our local computing facilities. We wish to include the full UK Biobank cohort in our analyses. In response to feedback from our approved preliminary application: we intend to use data from self-reported baseline information and health records to derive phenotypes. We acknowledge the complexity of looking across outcomes from different medical record sources and the difficulty in reliably ascertaining case status across multiple sources. We have undertaken preliminary analyses aimed at identifying case status in the UK Biobank using multivariate measures (self-report, hospital data, treatment status) as part of our collaboration on application 16577, and will extend this work with approval of this application.

Lead investigator:	Professor Cathryn Lewis
Lead institution:	Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

3 related Returns

Return ID	App ID	Description	Archive Date
2891	18177	Cannabis use, depression and self-harm: phenotypic and genetic relationships	27 Nov 2020
1921	18177	Classical Human Leukocyte Antigen Alleles and C4 Haplotypes Are Not Significantly Associated With Depression	29 Jan 2020
2461	18177	Depression with atypical neurovegetative symptoms shares genetic predisposition with immuno-metabolic traits and alcohol consumption	15 Oct 2020

1 Publication

Pub ID	Title	Author(s)	Year	Journal
1835	Association of Polygenic Risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder With Co-occurring Traits and Disorders	Ebba Du Rietz (+5)	2017	Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Application:	18177, Multi-trait GWAS analyses in the UK Biobank
Title:	Association of Polygenic Risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder With Co-occurring Traits and Disorders
Size:	307.5 MB
Archived:	29 Nov 2019
Stability:	Complete
Personal:	No individual-level data