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. 2016 Dec:14:161-167.
doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2016.11.003. Epub 2016 Nov 4.

Shared Genetics and Couple-Associated Environment Are Major Contributors to the Risk of Both Clinical and Self-Declared Depression

Yanni Zeng  1 , Pau Navarro  2 , Charley Xia  2 , Carmen Amador  2 , Ana M Fernandez-Pujals  3 , Pippa A Thomson  4 , Archie Campbell  5 , Reka Nagy  2 , Toni-Kim Clarke  3 , Jonathan D Hafferty  3 , Blair H Smith  6 , Lynne J Hocking  7 , Sandosh Padmanabhan  8 , Caroline Hayward  2 , Donald J MacIntyre  3 , David J Porteous  9 , Chris S Haley  10 , Andrew M McIntosh  11
Affiliations

Shared Genetics and Couple-Associated Environment Are Major Contributors to the Risk of Both Clinical and Self-Declared Depression

Yanni Zeng et al. EBioMedicine. 2016 Dec.

Abstract

Background: Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to risk of depression, but estimates of their relative contributions are limited. Commonalities between clinically-assessed major depressive disorder (MDD) and self-declared depression (SDD) are also unclear.

Methods: Using data from a large Scottish family-based cohort (GS:SFHS, N=19,994), we estimated the genetic and environmental variance components for MDD and SDD. The components representing the genetic effect associated with genome-wide common genetic variants (SNP heritability), the additional pedigree-associated genetic effect and non-genetic effects associated with common environments were estimated in a linear mixed model (LMM).

Findings: Both MDD and SDD had significant contributions from components representing the effect from common genetic variants, the additional genetic effect associated with the pedigree and the common environmental effect shared by couples. The estimate of correlation between SDD and MDD was high (r=1.00, se=0.20) for common-variant-associated genetic effect and lower for the additional genetic effect from the pedigree (r=0.57, se=0.08) and the couple-shared environmental effect (r=0.53, se=0.22).

Interpretation: Both genetics and couple-shared environmental effects were major factors influencing liability to depression. SDD may provide a scalable alternative to MDD in studies seeking to identify common risk variants. Rarer variants and environmental effects may however differ substantially according to different definitions of depression.

Keywords: Couple effect; Family environment; Linear mixed modeling; Major depressive disorder; SNP heritability; Self-declared depression.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The design of the environment relationship matrices.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Comparison of the proportion of variance explained by the common-variants- and pedigree- associated genetic components estimated in the model that only account for the two genetic components (the GK model) and in the full model that accounts for two genetics and three shared-environmental effects (the GKFSC model). SDD: self declared depression, MDD: major depressive disorder.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Sources of phenotypic variance and the proportion of variance they explained in the most parsimonious model (GKC) for both SDD and MDD. SDD: self declared depression, MDD: major depressive disorder.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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