Classical Human Leukocyte Antigen Alleles and C4 Haplotypes Are Not Significantly Associated With Depression.

Glanville KP, Coleman JRI, Hanscombe KB, Euesden J, Choi SW, Purves KL, Breen G, Air TM, Andlauer TFM, Baune BT, Binder EB, Blackwood DHR, Boomsma DI, Buttenschøn HN, Colodro-Conde L, Dannlowski U, Direk N, Dunn EC, Forstner AJ, de Geus EJC, Grabe HJ, Hamilton SP, Jones I, Jones LA, Knowles JA, Kutalik Z, Levinson DF, Lewis G, Lind PA, Lucae S, Magnusson PK, McGuffin P, McIntosh AM, Milaneschi Y, Mors O, Mostafavi S, Müller-Myhsok B, Pedersen NL, Penninx BWJH, Potash JB, Preisig M, Ripke S, Shi J, Shyn SI, Smoller JW, Streit F, Sullivan PF, Tiemeier H, Uher R, Van der Auwera S, Weissman MM, Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium , O'Reilly PF, Lewis CM

Biol. Psychiatry - (-) - [2019-08-05; online 2019-08-05]

The prevalence of depression is higher in individuals with autoimmune diseases, but the mechanisms underlying the observed comorbidities are unknown. Shared genetic etiology is a plausible explanation for the overlap, and in this study we tested whether genetic variation in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which is associated with risk for autoimmune diseases, is also associated with risk for depression. We fine-mapped the classical MHC (chr6: 29.6-33.1 Mb), imputing 216 human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and 4 complement component 4 (C4) haplotypes in studies from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Major Depressive Disorder Working Group and the UK Biobank. The total sample size was 45,149 depression cases and 86,698 controls. We tested for association between depression status and imputed MHC variants, applying both a region-wide significance threshold (3.9 × 10 -6) and a candidate threshold (1.6 × 10-4). No HLA alleles or C4 haplotypes were associated with depression at the region-wide threshold. HLA-B*08:01 was associated with modest protection for depression at the candidate threshold for testing in HLA genes in the meta-analysis (odds ratio = 0.98, 95% confidence interval = 0.97-0.99). We found no evidence that an increased risk for depression was conferred by HLA alleles, which play a major role in the genetic susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, or C4 haplotypes, which are strongly associated with schizophrenia. These results suggest that any HLA or C4 variants associated with depression either are rare or have very modest effect sizes.

NGI Uppsala (SNP&SEQ Technology Platform) [Service]

National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]

PubMed 31570195

DOI 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.06.031

Crossref 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.06.031

pii: S0006-3223(19)31558-6