Browsing by Author "Harris, Kathleen Mullan"

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    A putatively functional polymorphism in the HTR2C gene is associated with depressive symptoms in white females reporting significant life stress.
    (PloS one, 2014-01) Brummett, Beverly H; Babyak, Michael A; Williams, Redford B; Harris, Kathleen Mullan; Jiang, Rong; Kraus, William E; Singh, Abanish; Costa, Paul T; Georgiades, Anastasia; Siegler, Ilene C
    Psychosocial stress is well known to be positively associated with subsequent depressive symptoms. Cortisol response to stress may be one of a number of biological mechanisms that links psychological stress to depressive symptoms, although the precise causal pathway remains unclear. Activity of the x-linked serotonin 5-HTR2C receptor has also been shown to be associated with depression and with clinical response to antidepressant medications. We recently demonstrated that variation in a single nucleotide polymorphism on the HTR2C gene, rs6318 (Ser23Cys), is associated with different cortisol release and short-term changes in affect in response to a series of stress tasks in the laboratory. Based on this observation, we decided to examine whether rs6318 might moderate the association between psychosocial stress and subsequent depressive symptoms. In the present study we use cross-sectional data from a large population-based sample of young adult White men (N = 2,366) and White women (N = 2,712) in the United States to test this moderation hypothesis. Specifically, we hypothesized that the association between self-reported stressful life events and depressive symptoms would be stronger among homozygous Ser23 C females and hemizygous Ser23 C males than among Cys23 G carriers. In separate within-sex analyses a genotype-by-life stress interaction was observed for women (p = .022) but not for men (p = .471). Homozygous Ser23 C women who reported high levels of life stress had depressive symptom scores that were about 0.3 standard deviations higher than female Cys23 G carriers with similarly high stress levels. In contrast, no appreciable difference in depressive symptoms was observed between genotypes at lower levels of stress. Our findings support prior work that suggests a functional SNP on the HTR2C gene may confer an increased risk for depressive symptoms in White women with a history of significant life stress.
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    Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use.
    (Nature, 2022-12) Saunders, Gretchen RB; Wang, Xingyan; Chen, Fang; Jang, Seon-Kyeong; Liu, Mengzhen; Wang, Chen; Gao, Shuang; Jiang, Yu; Khunsriraksakul, Chachrit; Otto, Jacqueline M; Addison, Clifton; Akiyama, Masato; Albert, Christine M; Aliev, Fazil; Alonso, Alvaro; Arnett, Donna K; Ashley-Koch, Allison E; Ashrani, Aneel A; Barnes, Kathleen C; Barr, R Graham; Bartz, Traci M; Becker, Diane M; Bielak, Lawrence F; Benjamin, Emelia J; Bis, Joshua C; Bjornsdottir, Gyda; Blangero, John; Bleecker, Eugene R; Boardman, Jason D; Boerwinkle, Eric; Boomsma, Dorret I; Boorgula, Meher Preethi; Bowden, Donald W; Brody, Jennifer A; Cade, Brian E; Chasman, Daniel I; Chavan, Sameer; Chen, Yii-Der Ida; Chen, Zhengming; Cheng, Iona; Cho, Michael H; Choquet, Hélène; Cole, John W; Cornelis, Marilyn C; Cucca, Francesco; Curran, Joanne E; de Andrade, Mariza; Dick, Danielle M; Docherty, Anna R; Duggirala, Ravindranath; Eaton, Charles B; Ehringer, Marissa A; Esko, Tõnu; Faul, Jessica D; Fernandes Silva, Lilian; Fiorillo, Edoardo; Fornage, Myriam; Freedman, Barry I; Gabrielsen, Maiken E; Garrett, Melanie E; Gharib, Sina A; Gieger, Christian; Gillespie, Nathan; Glahn, David C; Gordon, Scott D; Gu, Charles C; Gu, Dongfeng; Gudbjartsson, Daniel F; Guo, Xiuqing; Haessler, Jeffrey; Hall, Michael E; Haller, Toomas; Harris, Kathleen Mullan; He, Jiang; Herd, Pamela; Hewitt, John K; Hickie, Ian; Hidalgo, Bertha; Hokanson, John E; Hopfer, Christian; Hottenga, JoukeJan; Hou, Lifang; Huang, Hongyan; Hung, Yi-Jen; Hunter, David J; Hveem, Kristian; Hwang, Shih-Jen; Hwu, Chii-Min; Iacono, William; Irvin, Marguerite R; Jee, Yon Ho; Johnson, Eric O; Joo, Yoonjung Y; Jorgenson, Eric; Justice, Anne E; Kamatani, Yoichiro; Kaplan, Robert C; Kaprio, Jaakko; Kardia, Sharon LR; Keller, Matthew C; Kelly, Tanika N; Kooperberg, Charles; Korhonen, Tellervo; Kraft, Peter; Krauter, Kenneth; Kuusisto, Johanna; Laakso, Markku; Lasky-Su, Jessica; Lee, Wen-Jane; Lee, James J; Levy, Daniel; Li, Liming; Li, Kevin; Li, Yuqing; Lin, Kuang; Lind, Penelope A; Liu, Chunyu; Lloyd-Jones, Donald M; Lutz, Sharon M; Ma, Jiantao; Mägi, Reedik; Manichaikul, Ani; Martin, Nicholas G; Mathur, Ravi; Matoba, Nana; McArdle, Patrick F; McGue, Matt; McQueen, Matthew B; Medland, Sarah E; Metspalu, Andres; Meyers, Deborah A; Millwood, Iona Y; Mitchell, Braxton D; Mohlke, Karen L; Moll, Matthew; Montasser, May E; Morrison, Alanna C; Mulas, Antonella; Nielsen, Jonas B; North, Kari E; Oelsner, Elizabeth C; Okada, Yukinori; Orrù, Valeria; Palmer, Nicholette D; Palviainen, Teemu; Pandit, Anita; Park, S Lani; Peters, Ulrike; Peters, Annette; Peyser, Patricia A; Polderman, Tinca JC; Rafaels, Nicholas; Redline, Susan; Reed, Robert M; Reiner, Alex P; Rice, John P; Rich, Stephen S; Richmond, Nicole E; Roan, Carol; Rotter, Jerome I; Rueschman, Michael N; Runarsdottir, Valgerdur; Saccone, Nancy L; Schwartz, David A; Shadyab, Aladdin H; Shi, Jingchunzi; Shringarpure, Suyash S; Sicinski, Kamil; Skogholt, Anne Heidi; Smith, Jennifer A; Smith, Nicholas L; Sotoodehnia, Nona; Stallings, Michael C; Stefansson, Hreinn; Stefansson, Kari; Stitzel, Jerry A; Sun, Xiao; Syed, Moin; Tal-Singer, Ruth; Taylor, Amy E; Taylor, Kent D; Telen, Marilyn J; Thai, Khanh K; Tiwari, Hemant; Turman, Constance; Tyrfingsson, Thorarinn; Wall, Tamara L; Walters, Robin G; Weir, David R; Weiss, Scott T; White, Wendy B; Whitfield, John B; Wiggins, Kerri L; Willemsen, Gonneke; Willer, Cristen J; Winsvold, Bendik S; Xu, Huichun; Yanek, Lisa R; Yin, Jie; Young, Kristin L; Young, Kendra A; Yu, Bing; Zhao, Wei; Zhou, Wei; Zöllner, Sebastian; Zuccolo, Luisa; 23andMe Research Team; Biobank Japan Project; Batini, Chiara; Bergen, Andrew W; Bierut, Laura J; David, Sean P; Gagliano Taliun, Sarah A; Hancock, Dana B; Jiang, Bibo; Munafò, Marcus R; Thorgeirsson, Thorgeir E; Liu, Dajiang J; Vrieze, Scott
    Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury1-4. These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries5. Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction.
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    Polygenic Influence on Educational Attainment
    (AERA Open, 2015-08-19) Domingue, Benjamin W; Belsky, Daniel W; Conley, Dalton; Harris, Kathleen Mullan; Boardman, Jason D
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    Social determinants of health and survival in humans and other animals.
    (Science (New York, N.Y.), 2020-05) Snyder-Mackler, Noah; Burger, Joseph Robert; Gaydosh, Lauren; Belsky, Daniel W; Noppert, Grace A; Campos, Fernando A; Bartolomucci, Alessandro; Yang, Yang Claire; Aiello, Allison E; O'Rand, Angela; Harris, Kathleen Mullan; Shively, Carol A; Alberts, Susan C; Tung, Jenny
    The social environment, both in early life and adulthood, is one of the strongest predictors of morbidity and mortality risk in humans. Evidence from long-term studies of other social mammals indicates that this relationship is similar across many species. In addition, experimental studies show that social interactions can causally alter animal physiology, disease risk, and life span itself. These findings highlight the importance of the social environment to health and mortality as well as Darwinian fitness-outcomes of interest to social scientists and biologists alike. They thus emphasize the utility of cross-species analysis for understanding the predictors of, and mechanisms underlying, social gradients in health.